


to err is human, to forgive divine

by cannibalpasta



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Tony Stark, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Eventual Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapped Tony Stark, Kidnapping, M/M, Mutual Pining, No Steve bashing, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Non-Consensual Touching, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Physical Abuse, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Endgame, Snarky Tony Stark, Team Iron Man, Tony Stark Whump, Tony Stark-centric, Violence, although this was written before the premiere so we are spoiler free, but let's be honest about cacw and who was in the wrong alright, there will be some discussions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2019-11-28 04:36:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 32,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18203615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cannibalpasta/pseuds/cannibalpasta
Summary: Ridiculous. That's what this was. Ridiculous.In his life Tony had been called by many names. Wonder Boy. The Futurist. The Merchant of Death. Iron Man. Some had claimed he was a one man army.Right now though, all he felt like was an old man. A very fragile, achy old man.A post-Endgame fic where Tony is kidnapped and the whole thing is simultaneously highly embarrassing and terrifying.No Endgame spoilers.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi.
> 
> Yes, another WIP. No, I'm not regretting it (yet). This is post-IW and post-EG fic, although this is written before Endgame, so you won't find any spoilers here.
> 
> Enjoy!

Ridiculous. That's what this was. Ridiculous.

In his life Tony had been called by many names. Wonder Boy. The Futurist. The Merchant of Death. Iron Man. Some had claimed he was a one man army.

Right now though, all he felt like was an old man. A very fragile, achy old man.

A boot-clad foot collided with his ribs. He grunted and rolled with the impact, his back hitting the wall behind him.

Steve would be so disappointed were he to see him right now. All those hand-to-hand combat lessons, and here he still was. Lying on the ground like an upturned tortoise.

There had been five of them. It wasn't that much, not by Avenger standards at least. He'd faced against worse odds and come out on top. This time it was different, however.

There had been a fundraiser tonight. And assuming that he hadn't yet lost track of time, it was still ongoing, just without him at the moment. He had been accompanied by Pepper since it was a Stark Industries event, chatting up some investors, when a disheveled-looking waitress had come up to him and told him that there was a disturbance that needed his attention.

In hindsight, he probably should have seen it for what it was. They had security for these kinds of things after all, a simple fundraiser shouldn't need an Avenger operating as additional defense. But the waitress had seemed anxious and genuine and Tony was good at telling when people were deceiving him, and this wasn't it.

Then, she had led him to the back door and alarm bells had already gone off in Tony's head. He took another look at the waitress; she was visibly scared and her posture seemed to scream guilt.

"What'd they say to you?" he asked before she could pull the door open. Her hand froze on the handle.

"Please," she gasped, looking at him over her shoulder, "they've got my daughter. I'm so sorry, Mr. Stark, but they...they told me if I didn't get you over here alone they'd—"

"It's okay," Tony interrupted her, trying to find his most soothing tone, "What's your name?"

She swallowed. "Sarah."

"Sarah," he repeated, "Go back to the hall and find Ms. Potts. Tell her what you just told me. She'll help you and your daughter."

"What about—"

"I'm just going to take a breather outside, okay? It's a nice night, after all." He winked at her, smiling encouragingly, even while he felt nothing but. Sarah didn't either, if her pale face was anything to go by.

"I'm sorry—"

"None of that. Ms. Potts will send help my way. I can hold my own for a while." He jerked his chin in the direction of the hall. "Now, go."

She nodded and hurried away.

The first two attackers had been a piece of cake. They had ambushed him as soon as he'd stepped through the door, going for his arms to pin him down. Their joint attack was easy to evade, as were the amateur boxing jabs they threw his way after he'd dodged their hands. A few easy blocks, and soon one of them was wide open for him to land a solid punch to his jaw.

His pal didn't even stand chance after that. Before the one he had punched had even gone down, he had already grabbed the other one by his jacket sleeve, his free arm extended over his throat, and thrown him to the ground with a loud _thud_. One bruised shoulder blade, coming right up!

As he straightened however, eyes still fixed on the two men groaning on the ground, he was grabbed from behind, burly arms twining around his chest and pinning his arms to his sides. He growled and kicked, landing one into the man's knee, and his hold around Tony came loose. He turned, punched him in the nose and as luck would have it, someone else was grabbing him again from behind.

"Come on, do it already!" the one holding him yelled, one hand around his stomach and the other pulling his right arm back. He struggled, shifting his weight, and it made the man lose his balance. He fell painfully on his back against the hard ground, Tony on top of him. Tony twisted and elbowed him, but that was about all he was able to do before he froze completely, muscles seizing up.

He gasped, cold sweat breaking out all over his body. A high-pitched whining was all he could hear. Someone kicked him and he fell sideways, slumping to the ground. The sound stopped and he could again pull in shaky breaths, but the paralysis was still there, still firmly in place. As it ought to be, after a taste of the sonic taser.

_Fuck_ , he thought, attempting to stave off his impending panic. He felt something warm trickling down his cheek, Obie's voice ringing in his ear.

Steve's voice was in the other, telling him to walk it off and get the hell up.

"Cuff him," the man holding the device, _Tony's device,_ said gruffly. Tony tried to focus on him instead of Obadiah's ghost and Steve's nagging. He was the fifth man of the bunch, as far as Tony could tell. "The paralysis is only temporary and we need to get moving, fast."

The man that had first grabbed him, nose bleeding from Tony's punch and beard straggly, crouched down and twisted his hands behind his back. And all Tony could do was watch as he did it.

"What the fuck are you looking at?" Beard asked, shaking him as he tightened the cuffs. He rose up to his feet and kicked Tony into the ribs. Tony's back hit the wall, and there we go. A tortoise on its back.

"That's enough," the man with the sonic taser said mildly, ignoring Tony's wheezing. He was seemingly the one running their little operation. "Just grab him and we're out. Luis, call the car."

"Consider it done, Boss," the one he'd thrown replied, giving Tony a nasty side-eye. _That shoulder must be throbbing,_ he thought without any pity whatsoever.

Beard picked him up, throwing him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, as if his breathing wasn't already enough of a struggle.

They began running and Tony heard the back door of the building open with a deafening bang.

_"Tony!"_ Pepper screamed, and someone near him fired a gun, nearly stopping Tony's heart. It stuttered back into rhythm when he heard it ricocheting from something metallic and Pepper let out a startled, not _pained_ , shriek. Tony couldn't twist to see, all he saw was Beard's back and the asphalt, but he could hear his security chasing them down the alley.

But even Tony's security wasn't going to cut it this time, because just then a car screeched into a stop by the end of the alley. He caught a glimpse of it once they were close enough; it was a black van.

_How original,_ he thought. As if this was the first time Tony'd been kidnapped off of a gala or a fundraiser or some other event, then thrown into the back of a getaway car in the dark of the night. Yeah, right. Tony ate this stuff for breakfast.

He was aware, however, that his chances of escaping were considerably better before someone would shut the van doors, and so he forced all of his remaining energy into his barely moving muscles. The security wouldn't make it, they were too far away, but if he could get himself accidentally dropped to the ground they might have a chance...

"Open the doors, that taser shit is starting to wear off," Beard barked, his voice breathless, and Luis and his pal hurried ahead to pull open the back doors. "Stop squirming," he growled at Tony, hands squeezing tighter, the strength of them bruising.

In the end, he was thrown into the back of the van all the same. He grunted at the impact, his teeth clacking together and slicing into his tongue, since his jaw muscles were still pretty much useless. His hands were partly squished between his back and the van floor, and he could already feel the burn of road rash on them.

The man that had taken a bad hit with his back against the asphalt — _Back Pain,_ Tony decided — banged the driver's side of the van hastily once everyone was in, the doors still partially open as Luis struggled to pull them closed. Tony lurched backwards on the floor, sliding down as the driver stepped on it and the car took off. He wanted to yell in frustration when they begun gaining speed, his odds worsening by the second.

They had driven for a few minutes, Tony seething and sweating in his tuxedo, the vehicle taking crazy turns and disturbing the general New York traffic, when their driver seemed to calm down at least, slowing down into a more tolerable speed. Back Pain seemed to take that as his cue, pulling out a handheld LED light from the space between the narrow bench that he sat on and the wall separating the driver's side of the van. He clicked it on, illuminating the cramped space with white light.

Only four of them were in the back with Tony, Boss presumably sitting at the front with the driver, and in the low light he could clearly see the blue lights of the ear pieces they all wore, designed to filter out the frequencies of the sonic taser. The ear pieces designed by _Tony himself._

How could his designs be out there? It was like being dosed with cold water, the blowback from that press conference over ten years ago fresh in his mind again. Obie's greasy fingerprints all over everything.

In an attempt to distract himself from his spiraling thoughts — since wondering about his designs wouldn't do any good regarding his current situation — he made himself look over the men's features in the van with him, searing them into his memory. Their faces weren't covered, which might have worried Tony were he new to the whole kidnapping scene, but alas, it alone didn't frighten him all that much. Well, not as much as the implications of the men possessing his old tech. Now _that_ was something else.

At the moment, Luis and his pal — Speech Impediment, as Tony had named him since the guy seemed to be slurring his words constantly — were quietly conversing by themselves next to the back doors. Back Pain was holding the LED with a grave impression plastered on his face, as if it was some serious job he had been granted by the angels themselves. Beard was eyeing him like he was a piece of meat that had personally offended him, eyes hard and his mouth a thin line. It gave Tony the creeps, and he couldn't help stubbornly eyeing the other man back.

"Look away," Beard suddenly told Tony, ire coloring his voice. Tony wanted to sniff at him. _The nerve of this guy!_ Perhaps against his better judgement, he defiantly raised his chin as much as his stiff muscles allowed him to, looking Beard straight in the eye.

Beard didn't seem to like that. "Didn't you hear me?" he demanded, his voice rising in volume. _Yikes._ This one seemed to have some anger issues.

"Hey," Back Pain said from Tony's other side. "Chill, man. It's all good."

"Shut up, Marco," Beard hissed back, sliding off the bench. He stopped once he was close enough to loom over Tony, one knee braced against the floor. "I don't take orders from you," he told Back Pain — Marco.

"Boss won't like that," Luis suddenly spoke up. Beard ignored him in favor of grabbing Tony by the throat and pushing him tight against the floor. Tony's heart began hammering against his bruised rib cage. _Oh, great. Definitely anger issues._

"I told you to look away," Beard said with a low, threatening tone, staring down at Tony. Tony met his gaze unblinkingly, too bullheaded to back off now. He could almost hear Rhodey and Steve calling him an idiot for it, screaming at him to cut it out. Well, whatever, Tony knew they took provocation even worse than him, so they could go fly a kite for all he cared.

Beard's hand tightened, cutting off his air supply. Tony choked, fingers twitching but refusing to properly move. The panic he had thus far managed to fend off came back full force.

Perhaps Beard had malignant narcissism as well as anger issues. Tony would know; people told him all the time that he was a narcissist.

"Becker!" Marco called, hand grasping Beard's shoulder tightly. Beard didn't react to him, and Tony felt his limbs going numb from panic.

Then, the car stopped.

"What the—" Beard, or Becker apparently, started, raising his eyes from Tony's to look at the others. Tony squirmed faintly against his iron grip; his lungs were beginning to burn.

The doors at the front opened and slammed closed, and two sets of footsteps moved to the back doors. They were promptly popped open. Becker's hand let go of Tony's neck and he coughed, gulping in air.

"What do you clowns think you're doing?" Boss asked levelly, disdain clear in his voice. Tony blinked rapidly and watched as Becker glared in Boss' direction. He said nothing in reply to his question, which was probably the wisest move. Boss sighed, muttering something that sounded like 'whatever' to himself.

"Why'd we stop?" It was Speech Impediment this time speaking.

"We're switching cars. Now come on, get out."

Tony tensed when Becker leaned closer to grab him again, but the Boss' intervened, "Marco takes Stark," he said with a tone that left no room for argument. Becker looked mad, but let Marco pull Tony out of the van, biting his tongue.

Tony craned his neck the little he could, taking in his surroundings. They were somewhere by the edge of a train yard, lit mostly by the headlights of another getaway car. Other than him, there were six men — five of them, whom Tony already recognized — and one woman, standing loosely in a circle.

"Put him on the ground," Boss said and Marco let Tony drop.

He groaned when his shoulder hit the ground painfully. "F-fuck off," he bit out, finally mostly in control of his mouth. His words slurred a little and his voice was rough, but hey, at least the message was clear.

"Get me his phone," Boss said, choosing to ignore Tony entirely, "Take off his jacket, shoes, watch and belt."

During the trip, he had gained partial control over his limbs and he fought weakly against the hands stripping and searching him, his feet kicking and bound arms jerking away. They ended up cutting his jacket off of him, not bothering to uncuff him to remove it. The glasses with FRIDAY that he'd kept stored in the breast pocket got crushed beneath Boss' leather-clad foot and his phone was opened up, emptied of everything that the man could tear apart with just his fingers, then chucked away somewhere behind his back.

He didn't seem all that particular about it, but he was wearing leather gloves, and Tony doubted it was just for the sake of a fashion statement.

"Brace him against the van," Boss instructed Luis, who obediently pulled him up and sat him on the end of the van, between the open back doors. He was already capable of keeping his head up, but he did end up leaning heavily against one of the two benches in the van.

Boss came to stand before him and Tony held his gaze, daring him to do something.

He raised his hands and Tony tensed as the man patted him down.

"You know," Tony begun stiffly, tongue working hard to form the correct sounds, "usually people b-buy me dinner be...before getting all h-handsy." Boss didn't raise to his bait, just kept on groping him. "You got a name?" He paused to breathe. He felt like he'd just run a marathon from saying a couple of easy sentences. "G-gotta know who's mom to send the f-f-," he struggled with the word, _"flowers_ to, when I finish you off."

That got him the man's attention. He looked up into his eyes, slowly straightening up into his full height so he could tower over Tony. His hands came up to his throat and Tony mentally prepared himself for another choking, his pulse accelerating. But Boss' hands stopped by his bow tie, slowly, _gently_ tugging it open. Once the knot was undone, the man pulled it quickly off of him.

"Someone really ought to shut you up," he said, sounding almost bored, and before Tony could say anything else, he had slid the silk fabric between Tony's teeth. Tony grunted, leaning away, but the bow tie was fastened around his head while the others around them laughed at his misery.

They were quick to shut up however, when Boss suddenly grabbed Tony by his hair, the rapid and harsh movement going against his earlier bored drawl and slow hands. He tugged his head roughly to one side, so that the right side of his neck and his ear were vulnerable and exposed. Boss then pressed close, his cheek against Tony's and his mouth intimately close to his right ear. Tony squirmed and grunted at him, but his grip only hardened, turning to steel and prompting Tony to cease his struggling.

"I'm gonna let you in on a little secret," Boss whispered, his breath hot against the shell of Tony's ear. He shuddered and Boss pulled him closer. "I," he paused to breathe in deeply, "don't like smartasses. And I've got a temper. So, if I were you, I would control that quick mouth of yours every time I'm around. And you'll be seeing me a lot for the rest of your miserable life, so you really should stop with the sassing and start with the listening. For your own sake."

He pulled away, moving his hand from Tony's hair to grasp his jaw instead. He squeezed a little too hard and Tony sucked in a breath. He waited for Tony to look him in the eye before continuing in a normal speaking voice, "As for your question, you may call me Bates."

With that, he carelessly let go of his jaw and stepped back from him. "He's clean. Knock him out and load him up. He needs to still see the Doctor before we can deliver him to his new owners."

The hairs at the back of Tony's neck stood on end at the ominous statement, and he began struggling anew when Becker grabbed him by the back of his neck. He saw Marco advancing him with what looked like a regular electric taser. He bucked wildly against Becker's hold, but then the taser was pressed against his chest and a current was coursing through his body, and he knew no more.

 

* * *

  
Steve found out a couple of hours later, the trail long gone cold, the building empty and the venue cleared out of guests. The first thing he'd done, was punch a hole through the wall. The second, was to alert the rest of the team.

He had gathered all the Avengers in the compound into the common space living room, taking his usual seat by the end of the coffee table. The plush cushion felt good beneath him and made him feel even worse; here he was, sitting in the world's most comfortable chair while Tony was God knows where, taken away against his will, being tortured for all he knew.

Steve felt nauseated at thought and lifted his gaze from the brass table in front of him, eyeing his teammates to distract himself. He'd just delivered the bad news and paused for a moment to let them sink in.

Bucky was seated to his right, face blank and his posture stiff. Sam was next to him, looking serious as he digested the news. Neither of them knew Tony all that well, but they were acquainted with him or other team members well enough to acknowledge his importance, both as an Avenger and as a friend to the team.

Natasha's usually unreadable face was openly displaying concern and her knuckles were white as she pursed her hands into tight fists. Tony was important to her, Steve knew, and this mission would in all accounts be personal. By her side, Bruce was pale, a little green around the edges. For him, this was personal, too.

The five of them were the only Avengers in the living room, although they weren't the only ones enlisted in the initiative, or who would be involved in getting Tony back.

Rhodey was in the know already, of course. He had been the first to get the call from Pepper and was now somewhere out there, hopefully chasing a lead. He was only the obvious choice to be informed first, Steve had rationalized to himself. Out of the two of them, Rhodey was the one closer to Tony, while Steve was barely in speaking terms with the man. There were too many old wounds, Steve knew. Nevertheless, it still filled him with envy.

Wanda was in her room, as she still remained an inactive member. After losing Vision she had fallen into a state of deep depression, which had prompted the team to decide on placing her on a temporary leave. She had remained so ever since, not including the final battle with Thanos.

The other active members would have to be informed later on. They had connections to all except for Thor, for obvious, space-related reasons, as well as for Spider-Man who had kept his identity hidden after Thanos. Steve had no idea how to contact him. It was Tony's people that always called him in, and Steve hadn't exactly been handed a number.

He supposed he could ask FRIDAY to patch him through to Spider-Man, but it wasn't all that... _simple_ with her on most days, since she still hadn't forgiven Steve after the altercation with Tony. God knew, Steve had gotten stuck in the elevator more times than he cared to count in the past months he'd spent at the compound. And maybe that was his own fault. As it was, Steve hadn't been the most forthcoming with apologies, and FRIDAY could tell that Tony was still wary around him.

He wanted to laugh. A _computer_ was mad at him. It was such a Tony thing to do, to program emotions for a computer. Something twisted in his chest and the urge to laugh changed into that of crying. Oh, boy.

"What are we going to do, Steve?" Natasha, always the practical one, was the first to speak.

While he was grateful for the distraction, there was a part of Steve that wanted to scream that he didn't know. A part that wanted to grab his comfortable chair and throw it against the wall. Throw himself against the wall for being an idiot and not talking his issues through with Tony before this happened.

In the end, all he did was grasp his left fist in his right, squeezing tightly until the joints protested against the pressure. He swallowed and looked for an answer.

What _were_ they going do?

"We'll find him," Sam said, before he could say anything. Steve glanced at the other man. Sam seemed somber, but resolute. Next to him, Bucky nodded as if he concurred. Steve watched them for a moment, then glanced at Nat and Bruce, and finally allowed a small smile to curve his lips.

"Yes," he agreed, nodding to convince himself just as much as the others, "we will."

He stood up and began pacing the space. They would need to start the looking somewhere. He crossed his arms across his abdomen, lost in thought.

"Can we dig up any footage of the incident?" he asked.

"There should be CCTV recordings from the venue," Natasha supplied, "We should look through them."

Steve nodded. "Take Bucky with you."

As Natasha and Bucky cleared out, he turned so he could see Bruce and Sam both. "I want you two to go through possible suspects. Anyone that has had a bone to pick with Tony in the last few months. See if he's received any threats. Or, a....ransom."

Sam and Bruce nodded and got up. Sam walked out of the room, but Bruce didn't immediately leave after Steve had given his orders.

"What will you do, Steve?" he asked instead.

Steve bit his lip, then clapped Bruce's shoulder consolingly. "I'm going to suit up and see if Rhodes has found anything."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Please, let me know how you liked the first chapter :)
> 
> [My Tumblr.](https://cannibalpasta.tumblr.com/) Come say hi.


	2. Chapter 2

He woke up on an examination table with no idea how much time had passed. Disoriented, his muscles tensed and he made to move his hands to push himself up, but they stopped somewhere around his hips, accompanied by an abrupt snapping sound. He looked down at them, not surprised when he found restraints circling his wrists and ankles, securing his hands and legs to the table. _Figures_.

He looked around the room. It bore a resemblance to an actual operating theater, supplied with proper equipment and the usual color scheme, but with plastic cloths hanging from the ceiling, partly obscuring the view of the gray industrial hall walls. He looked down at himself again; he was clad in only his underwear, every bruise and cut and inch of sensitive skin vulnerable to the open air.

"Shit," he cursed shakily.

"Good morning, Mr. Stark," an unfamiliar voice replied instantly, startling him. He whipped his head around to watch as woman in a lab coat approached the table he was strapped to. "No need to be afraid. I'm just a doctor," she reassured him with a smile, doing the absolute opposite of reassuring him.

"I know doctors that can kill with the snap of their fingers, so you being a doctor really isn't any excuse, miss," he said. He wasn't sure whether Strange would appreciate his assessment on him, but it would have to do for now. He was in a pinch.

She chuckled at him, as if he'd said something particularly amusing. "Yes, of course, Mr. Stark," she replied. He just stared at her, having trouble figuring out whether she thought Tony was batty and was playing along, or she was the batty one and was just going through her day as she usually did.

"Good thing you're awake, anyhow," she said, breaking Tony's train of thought, "This will go quicker if I have your help."

"My help with what, exactly?" Tony asked, feeling himself start to sweat.

"I have been informed that you're having some microchips removed, as well as," she extended her index finger, tapping the glass of Tony's nanoparticle housing unit, completely ignoring his flinch at the action, "taking that out."

_Fuck no._

"Yeah, not happening, Doc," he said, pushing to obtain anger and heat in his voice, his brows furrowing, while the rest of his body went cold with terror.

The doctor frowned at him like he was but a misbehaving kid. "That won't do, Mr. Stark. I'm afraid I'm going to have to remove all that, be it with or without your help."

"Go fuck yourself," he bit out, bucking against the restraints. She sighed like she'd been expecting this outcome. Tony thought she would've been an idiot if she hadn't been.

"Alright then," she said, walking over to an instrument tray. She picked up a syringe and some disinfecting wipes. Tony begun pulling harder on the restraints, feeling his skin breaking and staining the padded cuffs with blood. If he could just slip one hand out of its restraint, _just one hand_ , then he would be able to make the armor emerge across his body and fly himself away from this place. "We'll have to do this the hard way," the doctor continued. "Relax, please."

"Get the hell away from me!" he snarled, eyes trained hard on the syringe.

"Don't worry, this is just a little sedative," the doctor replied lightly, "Now, Mr. Stark, do try to be still."

With surprising strength, she pinned Tony's thigh down against the table, quickly disinfecting the area and then stabbing the needle in, pushing down the plunger.

"No, no, no," Tony protested, struggling against the cuffs with all his might. He needed just one hand! The sedative would start effecting within the first two minutes — he would have to get away, _now_. "Let me go," he demanded, glaring at the doctor as he struggled.

He needed to get out. _One hand_. Get out, now.

The doctor stepped closer, smiling gently and watching Tony's movements begin to grow weaker as the sedative kicked in.

"It's alright, Mr. Stark," the doctor said, her hand brushing over his brow in a soothing manner. Tony whined, turning his head away even as the movement made his vision swim. His friends were allowed to touch him like that, but no one else. Pepper and Rhodey could. Happy. Bruce and Peter. And...Steve? Mmm. Steve.

He jerked out of his daydream when he felt a sharp pain piercing through the haze.

"Hush," a soft female voice reassured him, "this will pinch just a little, I promise."

He felt another burst of pain, down in the leg which the woman was leaning over. For a horrifying moment the pain intensified and Tony understood. He _understood_. The woman was _eating_ _his_ _leg_.

"No!" he yelled, voice slurring badly, "Off! Off!" He struggled, but the woman stayed leaned over the leg. He felt another sharp pain and then the woman got up, something held in her hand.

"First one out!" she exclaimed happily and Tony studied her face intently. It wasn't covered in blood as he had anticipated.

_Huh. Weird._

Something clattered by his left ear and he turned his head to look at it. The woman had dropped a small chip into the metallic container. She stood by it, wiping down her tweezers.

"That's from your leg," she told him. "I'll remove the one from your arm next."

"Wow," Tony said, and promptly blacked out.

He came to a while later, shadows passing over his face as someone moved around him. His eyes followed the silhouette lazily as it busied itself with something next to him. Then it leaned over his chest and touched it.

Tony tried to burrow farther into whatever it was that he was lying on, anywhere away from those hands. Those hands would hurt him, he knew that. They would cut his chest open and put in something hard and cold and painful.

"Yinsen," he pleaded, but the hands didn't leave his chest. He could smell the damp cave around him, and the copious amounts of blood that he had already bled from the shrapnel entrance wounds on his chest.

"Yinsen," he repeated and watched as the hands lifted something out of his chest. _They took out my heart,_ he thought and blacked out again.

 

* * *

 

Jim stared at the alley wall, eyeing the mortar-filled gaps up and down, glaring hard at the red brick, as if he was willing the wall to reveal its secrets.

So far, the brick wall had remained silent.

He was back at the event venue, out in the alley behind the building. It was the early hours of the morning and he had returned a moment ago, after a handful of hours of chasing leads that lead nowhere.

He thought about his mother's words, given to him a few odd decades ago,

_When you hit a wall, stop for a moment. Use that head of yours. Retrace your steps. Then, try again._

And so, here he was, staring at a wall. Back to square one.

He was about to start walking away when he stopped to listen. Footsteps could be heard in the distance, coming from the direction of the main road. The armor hydraulics whirred as Jim turned, looking at the man approaching.

He stopped, just shy of fifteen feet from Jim.

"Hey," Steve said, staring at the War Machine's chest plate rather than the lowered face plate.

Jim ground his teeth, eyeing the other man through the HUD. He wished Steve would just go away and leave him to his brooding. But then again, perhaps having Steve here would be helpful. Even if he was a righteous prick most of the time, the man had his perks. Especially in the field.

He sighed and let the face plate pop open. "Hi, Steve."

Steve met his eyes. "How're you holding up?"

Jim shrugged a little, as much as the rigid armor would allow. "As good as you can expect, I presume." He paused for a moment. _Manners_ , would his mother say. "You?"

Steve didn't reply, just looked awkwardly to the side, watching the same brick wall Jim had just been glaring at.

Yes, Jim understood _that_ feeling.

"Any leads?" Steve finally asked.

Jim shook his head. "Dead ends, more like." He beckoned Steve to follow him and began walking. "I have one location we know for certain he was taken to."

"Traced his phone?" Steve guessed.

"Yes, and his glasses with FRIDAY in them." Jim smiled a little, then sobered and glanced at Steve over his shoulder. "He also has a tracking implant in him. Two, actually. FRIDAY's working on triangulating his location as we speak, but so far it's not looking too good."

Steve frowned at him. "What do you mean?"

They reached the car — Tony's car — and Jim pulled open the back door. Pepper had left the vehicle here for Jim's convenience. Jim presumed it was also because she couldn't bear driving Tony's car without Tony in it, not with the dreadful implications hanging over them now. That was the thought that plagued Jim, at least.

He was glad that she hadn't driven it away by herself, in any case. She was safe at home at the moment, with Happy to keep her company. Jim supposed they both needed it right now — the soothing presence of a friend. What Jim needed right now was very different — he needed to crack the case.

"They must've used a scrambler or something similar," he muttered darkly, frown on his face as he leaned in, pulling up the box he'd tossed in earlier. "There have been no blips on FRIDAY's radar and it's been several hours now. They could've taken the implants out by now, for all I know."

Steve looked a bit startled by the notion. "How would they even know to look for trackers?"

"I don't know, Steve!" Jim exclaimed, the sentence bursting out of him almost involuntarily. He slammed the box to Steve's chest as he turned to him. "These bastards clearly knew what the hell they were up against. Believe me, Tony has had his fair share of kidnappings, and grabbing him is no easy task. Especially these days, when he's as paranoid as they come."

Steve met his gaze head on. "You're saying the kidnappers would've had to know about the trackers and how to disable them."

"And how to overpower Tony and keep him subdued," Jim forced out, although it pained him. He swallowed and dropped his gaze to the box between Steve and him. Steve looked down to it as well.

"This is what I found where FRIDAY last had a location. It was at the nearby train yard. There were car tracks around, so my theory is they regrouped there and switched cars."

Jim watched as Steve peered carefully into the box. He had carefully scanned everything at the scene, recording all with FRIDAY's cameras and sensors to inspect later in greater detail. He had bagged the evidence — Tony's phone, glasses and some discarded articles of clothing — and taken them with him, so the forensics could look them over.

"Can you have FRIDAY send the location of the scene to the compound? To the team," Steve asked, eyes glued to the box and its contents. "Natasha and Bucky are going through CCTV footage to identify the perpetrators or maybe catch a licence plate. They could look through the train yard's cameras as well, see if there's anything useful there."

Jim nodded. "Done. I hope they manage to find something."

"Me too," Steve agreed. He handed the box back and eyed Jim for a moment. "Where will you go now?"

Jim didn't have to try and concoct an answer for Steve; FRIDAY alerted him in that moment.

 _"I've got a new location for you, Colonel,"_ she said, voice coming from the armor's speakers, _"I received a signal from Boss' implant, but only for a brief moment."_

"That's good enough for me," he replied. He paused before meeting Steve's eyes again. "Wanna come with?"

A corner of Steve's mouth lifted up. "You couldn't stop me if you tried."

 

* * *

 

_"I'm saying, there's no way," Rhodey said firmly, shaking his head. He was fighting off a smile, Tony could tell._

_"What? You don't believe me?" Tony asked innocently. He fiddled with his cards and placed the bet. "Call."_

_"I wouldn't be caught dead," Rhodey deadpanned._

_"See? Rhodes gets it; you're full of shit, Stark. Call," Natasha teased, smiling. Steve chuckled mutedly, eyes glued to his cards as if he wasn't sure whether he was allowed to laugh at Tony's expense. It pained Tony._

_He scoffed to keep up appearances. "Why is it that unimaginable? I'm a genius. I've been to places. I've played poker since I was_ eight _. Beating the national champion at thirteen isn't that far-fetched."_

 _Rhodey rolled his eyes at him, dealing three cards to the center of the table. "You do have the poker face, but not the patience._ Especially _not the younger Tony Stark."_

_It was Steve's turn. He didn't pause to mull over it. "Bet twenty."_

_"Call," Tony said, just as quickly, "I so do have the patience."_

_"Call," Natasha echoed. She threw in her chips. "Also, nuh-uh."_

_Rhodey nodded at her, then sighed. "Fold," he said, glaring at his cards. He dealt the turn._

_"Bet twenty," Steve said._

_"Raise twenty," Tony countered. Steve glanced at him, but quickly shifted his gaze to eye his chips. Tony openly frowned at him._

_"Fold," Natasha said. Her eyes kept flicking between Tony and Steve._

"Call," Steve said.

_Rhodey dealt the river._

_Steve was quiet for a moment. Tony watched him, the arch of his cheekbone and the slender fingers playing with a chip. Something gripped his chest._

_"Check," Steve finally said._

_Tony sniffed, raising his chin. "All-in," he announced._

_Steve lifted his face. His eyes moved over Tony's face, his gaze searching and sharp. It caused chills to go down Tony's spine. Something seemed to shift between them._

_"All-in," Steve said, still staring at him. Tony allowed himself to smile, turning his cards around for the showdown._

Steve was supposed to let out a startled laugh, eyes sparkling as he showed his own hand, but to Tony's surprise, he spoke again,

"Are we there?" he asked, and his voice was unfamiliar.

"Seems like it," another voice replied.

The dream dispersed.

A noise. Car doors opening and closing, was what Tony thought it was. He turned his head, trying to pry his eyes open and wake himself up.

He wasn't back at the compound, playing poker with Rhodey, Natasha and Steve, but in the back of a car that smelled of cigarette smoke, disoriented and in pain.

The door by his feet popped open. He was reclined on the backseat of the car. "Time to wake up, sleeping beauty," the man at the door sneered at him. Tony finally recognized him — Becker.

_Oh, great. This one again._

"We're staying here for a few hours," Becker continued as he grabbed Tony by the ankles, pulling him in. Tony let him, and when he was by the edge of the seat, kicked his leg out with all the force he could muster behind it.

Unfortunately, it wasn't very much; Becker's hand stayed, fingers tightly coiled around Tony's ankle, merely rocking with his kick and guiding it to the side instead of his crotch. A dark look appeared on his face.

"You're gonna regret that, as well as all the other shit you've pulled so far," he growled, yanking Tony out of the car. He fell to the asphalt below, upper back colliding painfully with the exterior of the car.

His hands were bound before him, secured with handcuffs again, and Becker took hold of them, readying to haul him up.

"Fuck you, you pea-brained evolutionary throwback," Tony spat at him, twisting and struggling to make picking him up harder than it ought to be. "It's you who's gonna regret ever being born once I'm through with you tools!"

Becker finally managed to pull him up, an enraged snarl on his face. Tony wasn't intimidated by it and sent a knee to Becker's side as soon as he could. He leaned away, arms bending to break the other man's hold. It worked, he was clear of Becker. With that, however, he was also imbalanced, and he fell to the ground, parallel to the car next to him.

Becker followed him down, straddling his abdomen and taking a hold of his cuffed hands again. Tony opened his mouth to shout, but Becker's meaty hand landed on his face, instantly shutting him up.

They struggled for a brief moment before they were interrupted.

"What the fuck are you doing?!" someone asked, and Tony and Becker both turned to look. To Tony's chagrin, it was Marco, holding a key with a big tag attached to it. _"Fuck_ , Becker! It's almost morning, anyone could just waltz in and see!" He sounded pissed.

"It's this little shit's fault!" Becker said, shaking Tony with the hand over his mouth. Tony glared up at him. _Real mature of you, Becker. At least take half of the blame._

"I don't care!" Marco hissed. "Just get him and follow me. And do not make a fuss!"

With Marco's back turned to them, Becker focused back on Tony. His grip on his wrists tightened. Tony's breath stuttered and he fought against the urge to groan in pain. He didn't want to give Becker the satisfaction. "You play nice, now, or you won't like what comes next."

He was hauled up, pressed tightly against Becker's chest with his hand still over his mouth and dragged over the cracked parking lot. When they reached him, Marco was unlocking a door to the building. It was a dingy motel with two floors and a bright neon sign, shining its blue and red light overhead.

Once they stepped in, Becker threw him to the floor and pushed the door shut behind them.

Tony coughed and pulled his legs under himself to sit up. "Careful with the merchandise," he quipped. With the current treatment, Tony feared soon his bruises would have bruises.

"Shut up," Becker snapped, unsurprisingly, "You better not try and make a ruckus, or I'll find something to gag you with."

"Becker," Marco said, sounding irritated and like he was on the verge of giving up by this point, "You're letting him bait you. Take a chill pill."

"Yeah, Becker," Tony called, "Relax about it."

Becker took a step forward, but Marco was there to stop him. "Seriously, man. I'm going to report you to the boss if you don't cool it. And he'll _deal_ with you, you know that."

Becker shook Marco's hand off. "I'm not afraid of Bates," he said unconvincingly and — with difficulty — seemed to regain his composure. Or, at least most of it. He sent one last vicious look in Tony's way, then turned around. "I'm going to have a smoke," he said and left the motel room.

When it was silent, Marco sighed and turned to Tony. "You really can't shut up, can you?"

"I can, actually," Tony said, doing his best to stare Marco down from his spot on the floor. "Most times I just choose not to. Also, fuck you."

Marco raised an eyebrow. "For what? For not letting Becker beat your ass?"

"For kidnapping me, obviously," he said, frowning and trying to convey just what he thought of the other man and his intellect, "Is everyone in your line of work an idiot? In the kidnapping business, I mean."

Marco sighed again, looking somewhat fed up with the conversation. "Whatever, man." He bent down to dig through the duffel back he'd earlier set down by the wall. He pulled out a wide, sturdy-looking zip tie and started walking towards Tony.

"Get the hell away from me," Tony told him, scrambling back as fast as he could, but Marco reached him easily enough. He grabbed Tony by the front of his shirt and lifted a little, pulling Tony back so that his side was against the end of one of the twin beds.

"Keep still," he instructed as he crouched in front of Tony, palm planted on top of the center of Tony's chest to keep him against the bed frame. Tony squirmed against his hold, equally to dislodge Marco's hand from the immense scarring on his chest and to do exactly the opposite of what he had been told.

Marco _tsk_ ed. He changed their position, pushing Tony onto his back against the floor and trapping his arms between their chests. He quickly brought his hands in, sinewy forearms pressing against Tony's upper body, locking his bound hands in place. Tony bucked against him, but couldn't evade him as one of his hands moved to pinch Tony's nose shut and the other covered his mouth. Tony growled against his palm, feet kicking uselessly against the carpeted floor.

"I need you to work with me here," Marco said as Tony panicked, arching and twisting against his hold. He was looming over Tony, suffocating him with no real effort, terrifying him just to prove a point. "I'm not that unreasonable, you gotta realize that. I just need you to cooperate with me for the duration of this trip, okay?"

He let Tony choke for a while longer, watching him and keeping him pinned down to the floor. "Hm?" he continued, raising his eyebrows as if he was waiting for Tony's answer. Then, _finally_ , he released him. Tony gasped for breath, eyes watering as he pulled air into his lungs in rough gulps. He could feel himself shaking.

"I really don't like hurting people," Marco told him, "I don't like hurting you either. But I will, if you force my hand." Tony wanted to roll his eyes at him, but couldn't quite gather the courage required for it, lying as he was on the floor, dizzy and shaking like a leaf. Maybe once he caught his breath.

"Stay still, or I'll do that again," Marco finally threatened. Tony had been waiting for it. People couldn't help threatening him. "I'd rather you stay conscious for now, but I'll admit you're much easier to handle when you're out cold."

He righted Tony again and secured his cuffed hands to the leg of the bed. Tony didn't struggle again, but he glared daggers at Marco as he watched him pull the zip tie taut.

Marco stood up and walked over to the other side of the room. Tony watched as he sat down into an armchair and pulled out his phone, fingers moving like he was typing. _Texting the Kidnapper Group Chat_ , Tony supposed.

He turned his eyes to himself then, looking himself over for the first time since he woke up. He was wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt, neither of which belonged to him, and no socks or shoes. His whole body ached, but the pain was especially palpable on his left leg and right arm, beneath the bandages where the tracker chips had been cut out.

He mourned after the housing unit, wondering what had happened to it after it had been taken out. He hoped it hadn't ended up in the wrong hands, albeit it was equipped with enough firewalls and fail-safes not to cause him to worry too much.

The door to the room opened and Becker stepped in. He gave Tony a cursory once-over as he walked past him. He went to sit with Marco, pulling out his phone as well.

Tony wanted to bang his head against something hard. It was going to be a long day, zip tied to a foot of a bed with two kidnappers playing with their phones.

"What time is it?" he asked after a while of fidgeting. Two faces turned his way; Marco looked at him with an expression that said he couldn't believe Tony was on his shit again so soon; Becker just looked like he wanted to punch him. It seemed to be the norm.

"What?" he asked, shrugging as well as he could with his hands bound to the bed. "I asked nicely, didn't I?"

Marco sighed and glanced at his phone. "It's 4:52 AM."

 _Sheesh. 5 AM?_ That meant Tony had been missing for about six hours now. Rhodey, Steve and the team must have been informed already, as well as the authorities.

He merely nodded in answer. Becker frowned at him.

"Thank him," he said and Tony bit his tongue. _Dear Lord_ , this man drove him _insane_. He was constantly picking a fight with Tony, then acting as if he hadn't expected Tony to answer to fire with fire.

Now though, Tony was trying a different tactic. One that would get him in his kidnappers' good graces and possibly have the added benefit of not constantly getting him roughed up or choked.

He turned up his PR smile and looked at Marco. "Thank you," he said.

"No problem," Marco replied.

Tony nodded again and shifted his gaze to Becker. He was angry, but also surprised. He glared at Tony for a moment, then looked down at his phone screen again.

Tony sighed in relief. A hissy fit avoided.

They sat there quietly for some minutes, before Marco set down his phone and got up.

"I'm gonna get some sleep now. Take the first watch?" he asked Becker.

"Sure," the other man replied as Marco walked over to the twin bed that Tony wasn't attached to. He sat down and met Tony's gaze.

"Be good and we'll see to getting you something to eat," he said. Tony wanted to snipe something at him, but he curbed the urge. Instead, he allowed himself to roll his eyes. They wouldn't buy his act were he to completely alter his behavior, after all.

"Yes, Mom," he replied with a dry tone and watched as Marco lay down on top of the bed covers. He turned to his side and Tony craned his head to look at Becker. His pale eyes were already on Tony.

"I would suggest you get some sleep too," Becker told him.

Tony sniffed. "I'm good, thanks," he said with a slight sneer.

Becker scoffed. "Suit yourself."

Tony shifted his gaze to his bound hands. He tested the bonds and held back a hiss when the cuffs chafed his raw skin. The zip tie wasn't going to break, and Tony doubted he would be able to slide it from under the bed leg without anyone noticing.

His odds would be better, were he to get his hands on something he could use to shim or pick the cuffs. Another option was to dislocate a thumb, but Tony would be using that as a last resort; he would probably be needing his hands later on, was he to successfully escape.

He looked at Becker again, who was now back to swiping on his phone.

First, he would need something metallic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How did you like the second chapter? Leave a comment :)
> 
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	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **This chapter might be triggering/anxiety inducing to some.** Specific warnings included in the notes at the end of the chapter. If you've read the work tags you should be fine, but there are some faint 'themes' that haven't been specified, so if you feel like you need to make sure then please take a look below!

He didn't bother waiting for longer than fifteen minutes before asking Becker to let him use the toilet.

"What for?" was what Becker barked out at him. Tony was speechless for a moment.

"Well, what do you think?" he bit back, trying to convey what he thought of Becker's question, while simultaneously attempting to stay subdued. Just thinking about acting meek and obedient in front of Becker caused chills to go down his spine, but he didn't want to anger the man either; he really wasn't feeling up to another roughing.

It didn't work, of course; Tony had barely finished speaking when Becker was already halfway across the room. He knelt before Tony, harshly grabbing him by the face and pulling him away from the bed, so that his arms were pulled straight towards the bed leg and he had no choice but to rest his weight on Becker's grasp.

"Don't talk back to me," he growled at Tony.

 _Then don't ask stupid questions_ , Tony thought, but refrained from saying. It wouldn't do him any good either way. Instead, he stared defiantly into Becker's eyes and waited it out.

Eventually, Becker grew tired of their staring contest and let go of him. He pulled out a knife and Tony froze, but the man only brought it down to the zip tie that secured Tony to the bed and severed it with a faint _snap_.

"Get up," Becker said, one hand already around Tony's arm to pull him up. Tony stumbled after him as Becker all but manhandled him towards the motel room's tiny bathroom. He shoved him in.

"Don't lock the door. Five minutes, and I'm coming in," Becker warned, eyeing Tony up and down.

"Five minutes. Got it," Tony said, turning his body so less was visible to Becker. He didn't like the creep leering at him. The t-shirt he wore felt all too thin all of the sudden. He lifted his hands a little. "What about the cuffs?"

"The cuffs stay on," Becker replied curtly. Tony wanted to roll his eyes. _F_ _igured as much._

Becker raised his eyes to Tony's. "No funny business," he added and pulled the door shut.

As soon as he did, Tony promptly crouched down and pulled open the sink cabinet. He eyed his options; there were metal parts he could remove by hand from the drain stopper, but delicate as they were, they were still too large to fit into the cuffs. He rifled through the rest of the cabinet next. It was empty, save for some toilet paper rolls and cheap hand soap. Nothing that he could really use.

He stood back up and looked around the bathroom. There was absolutely nothing in the room that would fit, not that he could see. He was about to throw in the towel when he finally saw it.

A bobby pin.

The pin was laying on the edge of the tub, pushed up against the wall, forgotten by its previous owner and gone unnoticed by the person that had cleaned the room after them. And now it was Tony's way out of his cuffs. A stroke of luck, someone would call it. Tony didn't much care for luck, but right now he was grateful for whatever force in the universe that had conjured a bobby pin for him in that tiny, dirty old bathroom.

He took the pin in his hands and turned it over. _Yes_ , the pin would do. He smiled down at it, trying to contain his thrill.

He put the pin into his pocket, patting the fabric once it was concealed. Next, he went and did his business, flushing the toilet afterward and washing his hands and his face. He drank his fill from the faucet, having not realized how thirsty he had been until now. The water and the pin burning a hole in his pocket made him feel more alert, more in control. It was a good feeling.

After glancing in the mirror and taking in the forming bruises, he swiftly exited the toilet, not willing to risk Becker bursting in and searching him — finding the bobby pin — however unlikely.

When he stepped out, Becker, who had been waiting by the nearest bed, walked to him and took him by his arm again.

"I was going to follow you, anyway," Tony grumbled at Becker as he was pushed down to the floor. Becker glowered at him as he leaned in, fastening another zip tie around the chain of the cuffs and the bed leg.

When he was done, he grabbed Tony's neck and the smaller man tensed at the touch. Becker didn't squeeze however; the grip was just to warn him and keep him in place. Tony glared daggers at him, unable as he was to otherwise fight the hold.

"Shut up," Becker growled at him. He leaned closer, eyeing Tony's face, "Marco is trying to sleep," he added with a touch of sarcasm to his voice. And with that and a rough shove, Tony was released. He watched as Becker walked back over to the sitting area and pulled out his phone once again.

 _Prick,_ Tony thought, not for the first time that day.

With Becker distracted from tormenting him at the moment, Tony dared to turn his attention to his handcuffs. They were standard issue with a double lock, which meant that Tony should be able to rid himself of them with the bobby pin in his pocket. Becker had tightened the zip tie as taut as it would go, so he would probably have to pick both cuffs rather than just one in order to get away. It would increase the risk of him getting caught in the midst of it, but it was still his best shot at freeing himself.

He decided to wait for the opportune moment. He would need a distraction of sorts before even dreaming of escaping without getting caught right away. He was quick and he did possess a pair of deft hands, but he wasn't that quick, and he wasn't that inconspicuous.

 _Nat would have been out hours ago_ , he thought to himself, his mind wandering. _Nope_ , he corrected his earlier thought, _Nat wouldn't have even gotten caught in the first place, and neither would have the rest of the team._

He sighed softly and let his head drop to the blanket covering the end of the bed. He saw Becker raising his head in curiosity, peering down at Tony at the sudden movement, but when Tony didn't do anything else interesting enough, the man's attention was quick to shift back to his phone. Tony was left alone in his misery, which he was grateful of.

It took an hour for Marco to stir and take the second watch as Becker got some shut-eye. Tony sat quietly on his spot on the floor, watching them and waiting as they switched positions.

Half an hour into his watch Marco ordered food in. As he spoke his order into the phone, Tony pulled his hair pin out of his pocket and removed the rubber tips. He bent the pin and pushed it into the lock, bending the exposed tip until it was shaped the way he wanted it, then closed it safely inside his fist.

Another half an hour later, there was a knock on the door. As Marco got up, Tony tightened his fist around the pin, heart beating wildly in his chest. There would be no room for errors if he wanted to make a run for it.

When he reached the door, Marco turned to look at him and Tony felt sweat prick the back of his neck. His first irrational thought was that Marco had somehow read his mind. That wasn't the case however; Tony watched as Marco brought his finger up to his lips and his eyes widened as the other man pulled out a gun from his duffel bag.

"Stay quiet, and I won't need to use this on the unlucky soul behind that door," he said levelly and pushed the gun into the waistband of his jeans, concealed behind his back.

Tony bit his lip and nodded reluctantly, grip tightening around the bobby pin. This would complicate things.

Marco turned his back on him, and Tony pushed the pin back into the lock. He found the right position and twisted, listening to the click as the double lock disengaged. He twisted again, this time in the opposite direction, pushing up and down, and the cuff fell open. He repeated the procedure with the second cuff, eyes glued to Marco's back as he payed the food delivery guy.

Once free, he got up slowly, _quietly,_ and scurried over to Marco as he pushed the door shut. When he turned, Tony grabbed him by the wrist and brought his other hand up to deliver a hard, open-palmed strike to his jugular. The plastic bag containing their food dropped to the floor.

Marco let out a choked sound, but remained standing as he reciprocated, punching Tony in the shoulder. Tony grunted and kneed him in the stomach, the hand holding the other man's wrist squeezing and twisting. Marco went down, falling on his front, guided by the hand Tony still had on him.

Tony pinned him down to the floor with his knees against his back and a hand to the back of his neck. With his free left hand he pulled out Marco's gun from his waistband.

"Stop right there, you prick!" Becker yelled from the other side of the room. Tony turned to look at him; his face was red with fury as he stood there, a sleep mark still fresh on his cheek. He was holding up another gun, pointing the barrel straight at Tony.

Tony clicked off the safety and was quick to train his own gun on Marco's head.

"Or what?" he asked.

"Or I'll blow your fucking brains out, you—"

 _"Becker!"_ Marco suddenly barked out, "No, you don't! We need to deliver him to—"

"You're not delivering me _anywhere_ , dipshit," Tony interrupted, pressing the gun tightly to the back of Marco's head. He turned back to Becker. "You," he said, "If you want to make sure your buddy here remains in the land of the living, you better click the safety on on that gun and slide it over. Do _not_ presume I will hesitate to pull the trigger. You will regret it."

"No," Becker said, somewhat petulantly.

Tony loaded a round into the chamber. "What was that?"

Becker growled, eyes flickering rapidly between Tony, Marco and the gun.

"Becker...." Marco said from underneath Tony, voice filled with meaning. Tony frowned down at him and turned his head to look at Becker. He watched as understanding flooded his expression, then relief and Tony went cold with doubt. _Uh-oh_.

He watched as Becker brought his hands up to his ears, covering them tightly, and a familiar high-pitched whine entered Tony's own. His finger seized on the trigger and his muscles locked before slackening, and he fell sideways. The sound stopped as soon as it had started, only partially stunning him.

He saw Marco's hand in his pocket, now paralyzed around the device, but the man definitely had it — the sonic taser. And he had used it, despite not wearing the protective ear pieces.

Tony had to give it to him; asshole or not, the man was dedicated to delivering Tony to whomever it was that wanted him, no matter the costs.  _Well, the true followers are the first to die, right?_ he consoled himself. 

He twisted his head weakly in the direction of Becker; the large man, having been further away and managing to shield his ears in time, would recover faster than either Tony or Marco. He was already pushing himself up, balanced on all fours while Tony was still lying on his side.

He groaned in objection, trying to force his muscles to cooperate. His fingers twitched around the metal of the gun, and his shoulder moved slightly, but that was about it. He heard Becker finally standing up, and dread filled his mind. He was in deep shit now.

He listened as Becker stumbled over, collapsing on his knees by Tony's side when he was close enough. He took the gun from him and threw it away, along with any chances Tony might have had of escaping that day.

A punch landed on his head, clumsy and clearly meant as retribution. His head collided with the floor and he tried to turn away from the assault. Becker wasn't having it; he pulled Tony's hands behind his back and held them there as securely as he could. Tony groaned into the carpet in frustration.

"Marco," Becker slurred, but Marco was about as useful as Tony at the moment. Tony listened to Becker's scoff, and then he was being dragged over to the duffel bag by the wall.

"No," he protested, but Becker pulled out two zip ties anyway. He tightened them around Tony's wrists in the form of handcuffs, securing then tightly behind his back. Tony hissed at the rough treatment.

"You can blame only yourself for this," Becker told him. He leaned closer and spoke with a low voice. "When you're less out of it, I'll make you pay for that little stunt, just like I promised." With that, he left Tony by the wall and wobbled back over to check on Marco.

The paralysis was starting to wear off, and Tony wiggled his fingers, rotated his ankles and did everything in his power to speed it along. He hated the feeling of being trapped in his own body, of being powerless against everything happening to him. Hated remembering how it had felt to be able do nothing while someone literally ripped the life out of him.

Minutes passed, and Tony saw Becker helping Marco over to one of the twin beds. His legs were moving, albeit stiffly, and he managed to sit upright on the bed when Becker deposited him on top of it. He met Tony's gaze and sent a disapproving look his way.

"Really, Stark?" he asked. Beside him, Becker turned his accusing eyes to Tony as well.

"Can you blame me?" Tony snapped back, willing his weak muscles to work so he could heave himself up and lean against the wall. Before he was halfway there however, Becker had walked over and pulled him away. He let go of him once he was in the middle of the patch of floor between the door and the nearest bed.

"Get your hands off of me," Tony demanded, struggling against his hold when Becker turned him over onto his stomach. A knee planted itself into Tony's lower back, and Tony heard Becker unbuckling his belt. His breath caught and he began struggling with new vehemence.

"Becker," Marco said with a warning in his tone.

"I'm just making sure he learns his lesson," Becker replied, and it was accompanied by the sound of a leather belt sliding off of his waist.

"Stop!" Tony yelled when Becker's hands touched his shoulder blades. They gripped the fabric of his t-shirt, ripping it to expose his back, tearing it down the middle. Tony let out a startled shout right after as the leather belt suddenly struck his upper back, leaving a burning strip of flesh in its wake.

"Get me something to gag him with. He'll alert everyone in this shitty motel with that racket," Becker said to Marco. Tony looked up at him and saw the hesitant look on his face. He glanced down at Tony as if he was weighing his choices. "Marco," Becker called impatiently, and Marco sighed.

"I told you not to force my hand," he told Tony and knelt by Becker's side, tearing a large strip from the torn shirt that was still pooled around Tony's shoulders. He began knotting it at the center.

"Don't you dare—" Tony begun, but the knot was pushed into his mouth and the ends of the cloth were tied together at the back of his head. Marco pushed himself back up to sit on the bed as Tony glared daggers at him.

He nearly choked on the gag in his mouth when the belt connected with his already sore and bruised flesh again. Becker's hand buried itself into his hair, pressing the side of his face into the carpet beneath him as he leaned over Tony.

"You're a crafty little bastard, aren't you? Escaping those handcuffs and getting to Marco's gun, huh? I suppose we were too lenient with you. Well, we won't be making that same mistake again, just so you know."

_No, you'll be making another mistake, and I'll escape then. This is just a minor setback._

"And you won't get a chance to pull any of your shit again, you hear me? If you even consider it, I'll make you regret it."

As if to emphasize his words, Becker delivered three sharp blows in quick succession. Tony growled and trembled beneath him at the sharp pain. Becker was breathing hard at the exertion.

The belt _clink_ ed again and the next blow was pure agony; Becker had used the buckle end to strike him, and Tony could feel welts opening up on his back, leaking blood. He cried out.

He did it again, and Tony screamed into his gag. Once more, and he choked and whined when Becker dragged the belt across his back after the blow. Above him, Becker was outright panting, at that point.

 _A sadist_ , was what Becker was, Tony realized. And not the sexy kind, but the kind that would inflict pain and fear and revel in it, regardless of whether he had consent or not. Regardless of whether the one he was hurting was even enjoying themselves. Tony supposed the thought of an unwilling victim might even turn him on, what with the way the man was currently panting.

Becker hit him again, now with the leather part instead of the metal buckle. Tony supposed he ought to be grateful for it, but he couldn't quite bring himself to, not in the midst of the searing pain. He squirmed and bucked as Becker struck the open welts on his back, but Becker had him pinned down good and firm. He hit him again and again and again, until Tony's back felt like it was on fire.

Then the belt struck his ass. Tony froze beneath Becker, and Becker seemed to take that as an invitation to continue. He hit him three more times, holding Tony down by his hair as he flinched away.

After that, the belt was discarded; it fell to the floor with a loud noise when Becker threw it down. His free hand came down on Tony, landing on his lower back and sliding down. The hand fumbled around before roughly grasping one of his buttocks and squeezing hard. Tony let out a sound of protest, and it was more fearful than he cared to admit. He listened to Becker's heavy breathing above him.

"Becker, that's enough," Marco warned again, this time with more authority to his voice. "I think you've punished him quite... _earnestly_ already."

Becker breathed harshly for a while longer, but eventually both of his hands left Tony. The tension bled out of Tony's shoulders.

"I was just messing with him," Becker said, his voice hoarse, "I knew a snob like him would get freaked out by it." To top it off, he smacked Tony on the ass with an open palm this time. Tony jerked at the impact, but didn't otherwise react.

Marco sighed somewhat explosively. "Just, leave it at that, man. We're supposed to only deliver him."

"And we will," Becker agreed, "But if he'll be acting out like this then—"

"Shut up already," Marco snapped. He sighed again and stood up, walking over to the door where the plastic bag was still lying. Tony watched him pick it up and eye the contents. "Just tase him or something. We'll need to get the hell out of this place anyway. You get our stuff and I'll bring the car around so we can toss him in without anyone noticing."

"Hand me that taser then," Becker said. Tony tried to twist away from beneath him, but Becker pushed him flat against the floor with no effort whatsoever.

Marco pulled his electric taser out of his pocket and threw it to Becker. Tony bit on the gag as he was electrocuted, fighting to stay conscious as the room around him blurred.

"... _till Ohio_...." was the last thing he heard before he blacked out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _tw: violence, gun violence, non-con touching, non-con molesting, non-con spanking, brief sexual harassment_
> 
> Now we got that Tony whump...I hope you enjoyed the chapter. I promise things will get better for Tony eventually. Leave a comment! :)
> 
> [My Tumblr.](https://cannibalpasta.tumblr.com/)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!
> 
> So yeah, I went and saw Endgame.....and I don't want to talk about it, at least not the last half an hour. This fic will still however remain completely spoiler free. So please, refrain from discussing about the movie in the comments as well, or at least write a disclaimer for spoiler-y content just in case someone hasn't yet seen it.
> 
> Thanks!

Flying to the edge of the city took considerably less time than traveling there by any other means of transportation. Steve had hitched a ride on the War Machine armor, hanging onto Rhodey's shoulders as they flew over to where FRIDAY had received the signal last.

It had come from an abandoned industrial hall that to Steve resembled some type of a factory. When him and Rhodey made their way to it, however, Rhodes' scans confirmed the building disappointingly empty. They had hastily landed near the entrance.

"Dammit!" Rhodey cursed as he punched the doors in and promptly stomped through. As he followed, eyeing the bent doors, Steve wished there would be something inside left for him to punch as well.

They made their way down the hall, checking various doors as they passed them — lavatories, small offices and storage rooms as far as Steve could tell — until they reached the control room. It contained a whole lot of dust and multiple small, outdated televisions embedded into the structure on the far wall — CRT, if Steve remembered the name correctly from the technology guide books he'd read, although he couldn't quite place the decade.

Rhodey took one look at the monitors and concluded that they hadn't been used in a very long time. Steve had been expecting as much. He sighed; he could almost hear Tony mocking them, standing there with them in the middle of dusty, broken tech and creaky office chairs.

"Come on," Rhodey interrupted his musings, "Chin up, Rogers. We've got more rooms to search."

After a bit of walking, they reached a double door by the end of the hall. The dust and dirt that covered the floors of the factory looked like it had been disturbed recently around the door. Steve shared a look with Rhodey.

They entered the room cautiously; it was dim and spacious, with plastic sheets hanging off of the ceiling. It created an ominous feel to the room, and Steve glanced at Rhodey again as they entered. Rhodey replied to his look with a grimace, his face somewhat blanched.

"If we find a body..." he begun, trailing off like saying those words was killing him. Which, they probably were. They were killing Steve, at least.

"Rhodes," he said firmly, "Don't say that."

"I'm just trying to be real here, Steve," Rhodey said, voice sounding irritated and strangled at the same time.

"I know you are," Steve replied, forcing his voice to loose the sharp edge it had adopted, "But Rhodey— _Jim_ ," he continued, but couldn't find the words to say. He drew in a shaky breath and tried to think what to tell the other man. His mind drew blank; what on Earth could _he_ say to console this man?

"Let's just go," he ended up saying eventually, looking at the floor as he stepped past Rhodey.

And so they did, walking close to one another, Rhodey's weapons at the ready and Steve's shield on his arm, despite the fact that the building had been declared empty just some fifteen minutes ago. Steve supposed being too careful couldn't hurt.

Also, thinking there was an enemy ahead was easier than thinking there might be a body.

He let out an explosive sigh of relief when they moved aside another plastic curtain and found an operating table, blessedly devoid of any dead, brown-haired billionaires.

"Not so fast," was what Rhodey told him, and in that moment Steve wanted to punch him for ruining his relief. He turned to see what the man was looking at.

There, on the concrete floor by the leg of the table, were a few smudged droplets of blood. Nothing major that would imply of an existence of a lethal wound, but significant nonetheless.

"Can you scan whose it is?" Steve asked, although he believed he already knew.

"FRIDAY can analyze a sample," Rhodey replied, scraping off some of the blood with his armored thumb, then pressing it into a compartment on his arm. They waited only a moment in silence, until FRIDAY piped up,

_"It's a ninety-four percent match to Boss' DNA. Additionally, the blood type is same, which together with the signal I received raises the probability of this being Boss' blood up to a near hundred percent probability."_

Steve raised his hand to cover his eyes as he listened to Rhodey's groan. "Got it, Fri."

He took a moment to gather himself, then turned around to inspect the table behind him. There was a smaller, portable table by its side and a large light, currently turned off, hanging over it. Without it, the room was quite dim, the only light source being Rhodey's shoulder lights. Despite the drops on the floor, there wasn't any blood on the table, so Steve presumed someone had been around to clean up.

 _Clumsy_ , he thought, looking at the smudges of blood again. Maybe they could find something else here, too.

"Your theory about the perps removing his implants seems to be holding," Steve observed grimly.

Rhodey sighed. "Yeah..." He stood up from his crouched position and moved closer to Steve. "Not that I'm happy about it."

Steve just huffed without any real mirth behind it. "Let's keep—"

He was interrupted by a sudden loud bang, reverberating from somewhere in the room. He instantly lifted his shield as Rhodes spoke,

"FRIDAY?" he asked.

 _"Scanning_ ," she said, and when she didn't continue half a second later, Steve decided she was too slow and that action needed to be taken.

"Rogers!" Rhodey hissed as Steve surged forward, running to where he thought the sound had come from. He swiped plastic sheets from his way, and while he didn't have any lights on him, the serum had enhanced his vision enough that was able to see vague shapes of objects in the darkness of the hall. One of them, a very human-like shape, was descending from the ceiling. Steve slowed down his pace to watch cautiously.

The moment their feet touched the ground, Steve rammed his shield against them. He pinned the shape against a wall behind them, crowding close to them, and listened to their squawk.

He paused to process that.

"Spider-Man?" Steve asked once he placed the voice and the reddish gleam of the suit he could just make out in the dark.

"Hi!" Spider-Man greeted, voice high, both in excitement and alarm, "How're you doing, Cap?"

Steve pulled his shield off of him and took a step back. "What are you doing here?"

"Is it Spidey?" Rhodey asked, appearing beside Steve, his shoulder light illuminating the red-and-blue-clad Avenger. "Why are you here?"

"I was just asking the same thing," Steve said, raising an eyebrow.

Spider-Man let out a nervous-sounding giggle. It made him sound incredibly young, to Steve's ears. "A little birdie told me that something was going on?" For some reason, it was phrased like a question.

"Don't get cute with us," Rhodey said firmly, "Who told you?"

"I told him," a distorted female voice answered, and Steve twisted around towards the speaker. He had to blink a few times to make sure he was seeing who he thought he was.

 _"Nebula?"_ he asked incredulously. The alien walked over to stand next to Spider-Man, her blue skin in strong contrast with his red mask.

"Don't act surprised," she told Steve, the usual irritation present in her voice. Prior to this, Steve had exchanged only a few words with her in total, but the alien was... _distinctive_ , for lack of a better word. Distinctive in more ways than one.

She continued, "It's not like I wouldn't find out if Tony went missing."

And that got right under Steve's skin; he didn't know when exactly Nebula had found out, but he figured it had been before Steve had. Anger mixed with shame in his gut unpleasantly.

"How come you guys didn't show up on my scans?" Rhodey asked, sounding about as irritated as Nebula had and as Steve currently felt. The other man looked like he had had quite enough of surprises for one day. Steve couldn't agree more.

"We just got here," Spider-Man replied, "Also, Nebula has these—"

"I have some tech that prevents anyone from tracking or detecting us," Nebula interjected, eyeing Steve and Rhodey a little coolly. Steve noticed her stare was mostly focused on him, as if he was worth more scorn. He met her gaze with equal frost.

"But we were actually looking for you guys!" Spider-Man said, most likely noticing that the air around them was starting to turn hostile. "We think we might have something."

All heads turned to his way. "What do you mean?" Steve asked.

Spider-Man glanced at Nebula, but the mask he wore betrayed no emotions. He turned back to Steve as he continued, "We think we've got a lead."

 

* * *

 

They had been driving for the better part of an hour when the car finally stopped moving. Or, at least that was the amount of time that Tony was aware of, since that was since he'd woken up — they had probably been on the road for a lot longer than that.

He had kept to himself as they had driven, playing unconscious in the hopes of overhearing something useful. So far, the only thing he had heard in addition to the country music from the radio was some celebrity gossip Becker and Marco apparently kept up with.

The fact that his kidnappers seemingly routinely took part in mindless blabbing, paired with the persistent cigarette smoke that clung to the interior of the car had grated on Tony's frazzled nerves like nothing else, but he had kept his silence, trying to focus on the passage of time and the turns they took instead of everything else that was going on.

His back was killing him as he lay there and tried to appear unconscious. The gag was gone, but his hands were still secured behind his back with thick zip ties. He was wearing the same sweats and the remnants of his t-shirt around his shoulders and across his chest. And he still bitterly remembered his botched escape attempt and the punishment that had resulted because of it.

It had made him want to cry in embarrassment. With abductors as inadequate as Becker and Marco, two men whose combined IQs were probably half that of Tony's, both men in their early thirties where the first pains and aches started to appear, clearly amateurs when it came to kidnapping a person, since they were barely able to keep Tony in check....with all of that taken into account, Tony should've been gone hours ago!

The only competent part of the whole kidnapping gig so far, had been the part where they had successfully snatched Tony off of a street, and even that had its major weak spots. And the only person that actually seemed to know what the hell he was doing was Bates, and yet here Tony was; still stuck with these two tools.

He had sighed softly, mentally cursing himself. Maybe he had become cocky in his years as Iron Man. Maybe he really was an old man in a can.

He had decided to focus on his surroundings instead of the inside of his head. It wouldn't do any good for him right now, dwelling on his insecurities.

It was bright outside, he could tell that much even with his eyes closed. The sunshine came from up high, so Tony presumed it was currently around noon. For a big chunk of the hour that they had driven they hadn't made any turns, proceeding straight forward with great speed, if the low-frequency noise permeating the car had been anything to go by. They had been on the highway for a long time, before taking a turn to another road, this one bumpier, less smooth, perhaps a gravel road. Soon after that, twenty minutes or so, the car had stopped.

Tony's heart had begun speeding up as the car had slowed down. Now, as Marco pulled the keys out of the ignition lock, it was beating out of his chest.

He levered himself up to sit as soon as Becker and Marco exited the car, peering out of the windows and taking in his surroundings; trees and fields stretched as far as the eye could see, illuminated by the clear sky. They were parked in a sizable yard, with a section of old fence surrounding the immediate area of it. Directly in front of the car, stood a two-story country house made of stone, ivy growing freely on its walls.

While Tony was occupied with ogling the house, Marco and Becker opened the back doors simultaneously.

Tony leaned against the backrest, attempting to keep both men in his sights as he glared at them. Marco sighed at him while Becker glared back.

"You don't learn, do you?" he asked and reached for him. Tony went without too much of a struggle, since in the end he did prefer being handled by Marco rather then Becker. At least Marco could be reasoned with on an occasion.

"Get your hands off me," he nevertheless snapped once Marco had steadied him on his feet, shrugging off his hold on his arm. "I can walk by myself."

"That wasn't the case this morning, if memory serves," Becker interjected, throwing a disdainful look in Tony's way.

Tony sneered back at him. "This morning I was being thrown around by some Neanderthal who could hardly keep it in his _pants_ —"

"You watch your mouth, you—" Becker's heated tirade was cut off by the sudden burst of laughter. It took him a second, but Tony recognized the sound of it.

_Oh, for the love of God._

It couldn't be. If it were, this day would officially be the worst in a long while.

He took a peek over his shoulder.

It was.

_Fuck._

"...Hammer," he gritted out, turning slowly to face the stairs that the other man was stood on top of. The man smiled down at him, spreading his arms in welcome.

"Anthony!" Justin Hammer greeted him back, smiling that obnoxious megawatt smile of his.

 _God_ , it all came rushing back to Tony now. He had so wished he could have just buried the whole existence of Justin Hammer somewhere deep within his psyche, and never take another look at it or the man himself again. It would be just his luck that this miserable excuse of a day would be topped off by the reappearance of an old, _infuriating_ nemesis.

"You, you," Hammer was saying when Tony regained his focus, laughter still evident in his voice as he wagged his finger at Tony and stepped down a stair, "you haven't changed a bit, my friend. Still as mouthy as ever."

Tony smiled strainedly at him. "And last time I heard about you, you were still in prison. Pleasant stay?"

Hammer's smile was just as strained now. "Ah, prison. Yes, very pleasant. Got out, no ankle monitor or anything," he said, brandishing his foot as if he needed to prove it. He gestured to Tony, flourishing the hand that held a flute of champagne. "In any case, what a lovely surprise. To believe that you, Anthony Edward Stark of all beings, decided to grace us with your presence..."

"Trust me, even I can't bring myself to believe it," Tony quipped, stumbling along as Marco took him by the arm and pulled him towards the stairs.

Hammer kept on smiling. "That's right. But oh, my." He laughed again, this time at Tony's appearance rather than his manners. "What happened to your clothes? I'm used to seeing you clad in outfits that are more....well, _more_ ," he said and chuckled at his own joke.

Tony smiled venomously up at him. Marco had stopped at the bottom of the stairs, so he now had to tilt his head up to meet Hammer's eyes. "Yes, well, the entourage I was provided with wasn't the most accommodating, I'm afraid."

"Really, now?" Hammer asked, pushing the doors to the house open and beckoning for the three of them to follow. "I'm sorry to hear that, Tony. I believe you'll find my lodgings much more...accommodating."

Hammer walked across the lobby and lead them into a simple, traditional dining room. The only set of furniture in the room was by the window, where there was a table with a pristine table cloth, set for three. In the corner, near the table stood Bates, leaning leisurely against the wall. Tony met his eyes as he was steered over to the table.

"Please," Hammer said, "take a seat. I was in the middle of brunch when you arrived."

Marco let go of him to pull out a chair and Becker unceremoniously pushed him down to sit in it, ignoring the pained hiss Tony couldn't quite contain when his bruised flesh hit the wooden surface. He kept his hands on Tony's shoulders, preventing any further movement out of his seat.

Once seated, Hammer lifted his hand and motioned with it, flapping it at Marco and Becker. "You can leave now. We're good here." They looked towards the wall, and Tony watched as Bates nodded at the two and they cleared out of the room.

Hammer cleared his throat and Tony reluctantly shifted his attention to him. He lifted his cup. "So," he begun as Bates walked over and poured some coffee into the cup. It was piping hot and smelled heavenly. _God_ , Tony could kill for a cup of coffee right now. He hoped Hammer would choke on it.

"You must be wondering," Hammer trailed off, blowing on his beverage to cool it down.

Tony resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "About what, Justin?"

"About why you're here, of course," Hammer replied. "It must be confusing."

Tony shrugged. "Not really. I have been kidnapped before, I can take a guess. Money, tech, weapons, revenge, yadda yadda...What I am confused about however, is how you managed to pull it off so far. Not very like you, Hammer. _Succeeding_ , that is."

Hammer's brow twitched and Tony knew he'd hit a nerve. He composed himself quickly, nevertheless, laughing softly and carding a hand through his hair. "Oh, Anthony. Still the kidder."

Tony just smiled back at him, watching his expressions attentively. Eventually, Hammer raised his eyes and met Tony's gaze again. "Bates," he said, and Tony imagined Pepper there, screaming at him that he was out of his mind, going out of his way to bait Hammer.

Bates took a step forward, while Tony kept his eyes on Hammer and his face carefully blank. He wasn't afraid of Bates, or Hammer using him to inflict pain on Tony, but he wasn't an idiot either — he was the one at a disadvantage here, and painfully aware of that and what Bates was seemingly capable of.

"Please, untie our guest. I believe he hasn't eaten properly in several hours," Hammer told Bates, smiling at Tony. Tony was man enough to admit that he hadn't expected that; Hammer had been working on his poker face.

Bates moved behind him and cut the zip ties with a pocket knife. After Tony's wrists were free, he lingered by his back. Tony tried not to be bothered by it.

"Becker?" Bates finally asked, and Tony felt a finger trace across his shoulder blade where there was a particularly sore welt.

Tony tensed, but didn't acknowledge the touch otherwise. Instead, his hands busied themselves with pouring himself a cup of coffee. "Yes, actually," he replied as he picked up his cup.

"The big guy with the beard?" Hammer asked, cutting into the hash browns on his plate with his cutlery. He popped a piece into his mouth before continuing, "I thought we agreed on not getting too over-eager with the goods, yes?"

Tony felt ill at the notion of Hammer calling him 'the goods', but he let it pass uncommented in favor of sipping his coffee.

"Becker is a handful, Sir," Bates explained without any actual remorse to his tone, "Marco informed me that this was his way of...punishing him for attempting to escape."

"Oh, is that so?" Hammer asked, setting down his cutlery and contemplating Tony. In the end, he just shrugged. "Well, it wouldn't be the famous Tony Stark that I have in my possession had he not attempted to escape at least once. How far did you get?"

Tony eyed the porcelain cups and plates on the table. "To the door," he said, choosing to leave out the fact that he had gotten his hands on a gun. Let them underestimate him. Marco and Becker wouldn't squeal, since it had been their incompetence in the first place that had enabled Tony to get as far as pressing a barrel against Marco's head. They wouldn't tell a soul if they knew what was good for them. Something told Tony Bates wouldn't be very forgiving, to say the least.

Hammer laughed again, and Tony thought that listening to the sound of it was getting real old real fast. "To the _door?"_ he asked mockingly. Tony couldn't quite contain the glare he sent Hammer's way. Whatever, it just added to his performance. "You're getting old, aren't you, pal?"

"Don't worry, _pal_ ," Tony said levelly, "I've still got just enough fight left in me." He looked Hammer straight in the eye so the threat in his sentence wouldn't go unnoticed.

Hammer chuckled, but he did seem a little flustered. He was quick to recover, however. "Yeah, big words for such a small guy. We'll see if you'll manage to get to the door in here," he said. Tony wanted to punch him.

After a moment of mutual glaring, Hammer glanced down at Tony's empty plate. "You should eat something, Tony."

Tony agreed; his belly ached from hunger and the tremors from low blood sugar were getting harder and harder to conceal, especially in his left hand. But he didn't trust Hammer enough to eat anything from his table, at least nothing he hadn't seen the other man try first. Tony didn't put it past the guy to try and drug him this early on.

"Pass me the hash browns, then," he said. Hammer eyed him for a moment, but indicated for Bates to serve Tony some.

After getting the first bite into his mouth, Tony felt like he had waited long enough. "I do have one question, though."

Hammer looked delighted. "What is it?"

Tony paused, eyeing the cutlery in his hands, before continuing, "How did you get your filthy hands on my tech?" he asked bluntly and raised his gaze to look Hammer dead in the eye. He needed to capture any tells that Hammer would let slip past; he had to get his weapons _off_ of this planet, preferably off of this whole universe. To do that, he needed to know how Hammer had gotten access to them. "The sonic taser isn't supposed to even exist anymore, not even on paper. How could _you_ obtain something like that?"

Tony supposed he maybe should have paid more mind to his tone, with what the way Justin Hammer's brow was currently twitching from anger, but he had been feeling on edge since he first heard that too familiar whine yesterday evening. Additionally, getting kidnapped and manhandled hadn't helped with the matter.

Hammer was about to open his mouth, but shut it when they heard a car roll into the yard. Tony felt confused as he watched Hammer smiling and picking up his flute of champagne again, taking a sip. His smile was unnerving and Tony tried to peek out of the window that opened up to the front of the house. It was on the other side of the room, so he couldn't see who had just driven to the yard, but he could now hear two sets of footsteps moving closer to the front door.

Hammer turned his head to direct his smile straight at Tony. "And there arrives your answer."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How did you like the big reveal? :) Next chapter we'll meet Justin Hammer's partner in crime....
> 
> Thanks for reading! [My Tumblr.](https://cannibalpasta.tumblr.com/)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi.
> 
> How have you liked the story so far? It's been a ride. Also, I know it says 5/6 chapters at the moment, but the last chapter is going to be long, so I might split it into two separate chapters. I guess we'll see in 1-2 weeks.
> 
> Now, enjoy reading the 5th chapter!
> 
> **Once again, specific trigger warnings included in the notes below. Please, be careful.**

The front door opened and closed, and Tony waited as the footsteps approached the dining room. Bates had moved to stand behind Hammer, still and vigilant like a trained little dog, while the man himself leaned back leisurely in his chair.

The wooden double doors to the dining room opened and Tony twisted in his seat to see. A man stepped over the threshold and turned to face the table Tony and Hammer were seated at. Upon seeing his face, Tony froze up.

It was an all too familiar face; arched eyebrows, straight nose and harsh blue eyes. Tony remembered seeing those eyes last just moments before their owner had fallen to their death.

_Obadiah._

His lungs had stopped working at some point and he had to grip onto the chair, driving his nails into the wood until he felt a nail break. The pain made him gasp a breath in, and he blinked as he forced himself to focus.

 _No_ , he thought, meeting the man's gaze as he tried to piece it all together. _Obie is dead_ , he reminded himself, heart rate slowly returning to more acceptable levels.

The man standing before him was tall and bald, and eerily reminiscent of Obadiah Stane. But now that Tony looked at him again, he could tell that it was only that, _resemblance_. The man was just as imposing as Obie had been, but he was younger, perhaps somewhere around Tony's age. And what's more, Tony had met him.

"Ezekiel?" he asked, frowning as he looked the man over. It had been several years since he'd last seen him, but what Tony could remember of him as well as the striking resemblance to his father, Obadiah Stane, were enough to clue him in. This was definitely Ezekiel Stane, in the flesh.

"Stark," Ezekiel bit out, resentment clear in his voice. He walked further into the room, stopping when he was only a few feet away from Tony. Tony felt himself go tense as he peered up into Ezekiel's eyes.

After him, had trailed in a woman, seemingly an assistant or secretary of sorts to Ezekiel. She held herself timidly, but didn't look surprised or particularly disturbed by witnessing a bruised up Tony Stark dressed in tatters, sitting there having brunch with Justin Hammer. Now, another woman walked through the doors, this one a bodyguard by the looks of her. Tony didn't recognize either of them.

"What a surprise," he said, returning his gaze back towards Ezekiel. "I haven't seen you since—"

"Since before you murdered my father," Ezekiel cut in. His voice was flat and his face indifferent, but his eyes were blazing.

Tony couldn't hold in his scoff. "And you're...what? Taking revenge twelve years later? Come on, Zeke. I know you and Obie were never that close, but twelve ye—"

Ezekiel hit him in the face and yeah, maybe Tony should watch his tongue sometimes.

"You don't get to talk about him," Ezekiel told him, the hand that had struck him brandishing a finger in his face. "He was right all along, you know. I realized it only five months ago when everyone that had vanished was returned, but he was right."

Tony frowned up at him. The reminder of what Thanos had done chilled him to the core, but he was unwilling to let it show on his face. "What are you—"

Ezekiel didn't let him finish. _"He_ was right and _you_ were wrong. And because of you and your selfishness millions have been harmed and killed. My father—"

 _"Your father_ was a maniac—"

 _"My father_ had a vision for your company! For this country! His weapons would have saved us from that monster. He was going to protect us, arm us, unlike you and your bunch of freaks that somehow have the authority to run around rampantly."

"Obie was dealing weapons under the table," Tony said heatedly, "He tried to have me killed!"

"I don't care," Ezekiel replied, curt with a calm and cold voice. He leaned closer, looming over Tony. Tony was reminded startlingly of Obadiah as fury contorted Ezekiel's face. "My wife died because of you. And she was only one of the countless number of people that you've killed. _You_ are responsible for so much pain and suffering that you couldn't even fathom it if you tried."

Tony hid his wince at Ezekiel's words; he had hit home, right where Tony's biggest insecurities and guilt lay. And Tony was determined to not let him know that.

"You are the scum of the earth, Tony Stark," Ezekiel finished by saying, his teeth clenched. He glared down at Tony for a moment longer, before straightening and finally taking in his surroundings; he eyed down at the table, then at Hammer, sitting there dumbly, and Bates standing behind his back. "You expect me to share the table with him?" he asked Hammer, waiting to be challenged.

"Oh, Ezekiel, please," Hammer drawled. He sounded carefree enough, but Tony could tell he was treading on thin ice. "We're all adults here, aren't we? Surely we can finish this food together before it goes cold."

Ezekiel looked down at Tony with unveiled disdain. "Is everything prepared?" he asked Hammer, in lieu of answering his question.

For some reason, it gave Hammer pause. "Yes," he replied and his tone was vague enough to cause Tony stress about what was to come.

"Good," Ezekiel said, shrugging off his coat. He handed it to his assistant. "Bring him down," he told Bates, then nodded at his own bodyguard, "You go with."

Tony raised his arms up before anyone could touch him. "Hey, whoa, nope, I'm really not—" he cried out when the bodyguard grabbed his arm and twisted it, _"Ow, stop!_ Let go of me!"

She pulled him off of his chair, throwing him away from it, and he only remained standing because Bates was there to catch him. He steadied him and gave him a rough shove forward, causing pain to flare up along Tony's back as he aggravated the bruising there.

"Move," he said simply, nodding towards the double doors. Tony eyed the people around the room, calculating the chances of successfully escaping now; his odds remained persistently below what Tony deemed as anything worth trying, and he saw no choice but to do as he had been told.

Bates and the bodyguard walked him out of the dining room and through the lobby again, this time stopping by a door that lead to the basement. As they trailed down the steps, Tony noticed the drop in temperature and the hairs on his arms stood up on end. The basement itself was spacious and dim, only lit by a couple of hopper windows. The floor was concrete and the walls stone, and along the roof and up the walls traveled a number of exposed pipes. One lamp hung from the ceiling, but it wasn't turned on.

Bates gave him another push, and Tony was steered to the middle of the room where a wooden pole stood. Bates pushed him down onto his knees next to it and held his hands when he attempted to break away from it.

The bodyguard had walked over to a table by the wall and was returning now with a brown paper bag. She crouched before Tony and pulled out a sturdy-looking leather cuff from the bag.

"No!" Tony gritted through his teeth, unwilling to go through with being restrained again. He fought against Bates and the bodyguard, making it hard for her to slip the cuff over his wrist. He growled and tried to push himself away from the pillar while Bates crowded him against it. When she finally managed to buckle the cuff, she took hold of his other hand and Bates held fast onto the cuffed one.

"Stay still," she barked at Tony, buckling the other cuff tightly. She produced a short metal chain from the paper bag and clipped it onto the D-rings on the cuffs, securing Tony's hands around the pole.

"Lock them," Bates said suddenly, and Tony realized that he was very, _very_ close to him. His front was pressed against the whole of Tony's back and he still held onto Tony's arms, preventing him from taking a swipe at anyone or moving them away. Tony ceased with his struggling to draw in a shuddering breath when Bates pressed himself even more tightly against him. His proximity was suffocating. "Otherwise he'll find a way out of them."

Tony let out a frustrated sound when the bodyguard pulled out two padlocks and closed them around the loops on the buckles, finalizing Tony's fate for the time being with two soft _click_ s. He was panting from the struggling and his injuries were aching anew, but his eyes were unable to look away from the leather cuffs.

He barely registered the bodyguard standing up, before a voice spoke,

"Stand him up," Ezekiel was saying and Bates was quick to grab Tony by his upper arms, pulling him up and angling his hands towards the ceiling. Tony noticed a hook screwed to the pole, high above his head.

He let out a startled sound when Bates lifted him up, and tried to twist away when the bodyguard pushed his arms in so that the chain got caught in the hook. Bates let him down and Tony was left half-suspended, his chest pressed uncomfortably against the pillar while his toes barely touched the floor.

"Good," Ezekiel said, "Now leave."

After a moment the door opened and closed, and Tony was left alone with Ezekiel. He stayed quiet as the other man began pacing the room, controlling his breathing to remain calm and listening to the steady footsteps of well-tailored leather shoes.

His heartbeat stuttered when Ezekiel finally stopped moving, standing still behind Tony's back, right in his blind spot. He couldn't suppress his flinch when a large hand touched the skin there.

Ezekiel studied him for a moment and Tony finally grew tired of it.

"Just get on with it," he said. "I don't have all day."

The hand didn't leave his skin; fingers were now trailing his spine up and down. "Oh," Ezekiel began, voice level, "in a hurry to somewhere?"

"Actually, yeah," Tony said, gasping when Ezekiel's fingers pressed down on a laceration, "but you know, I'm stuck in a basement with some weirdo so—"

Ezekiel grabbed him by the back of his neck and bashed his face into the pole. Tony felt the skin above his right brow splitting open and blood begun trickling down his face.

"Shutting up would serve you good now," Ezekiel growled into his ear.

"Not my strong suit," Tony quipped, almost involuntarily because it just came so easily for him, and almost regretted it when Ezekiel changed the hold he had on his neck to cut off his air supply.

"So I've noticed," he said, only letting Tony panic for a short moment before releasing him. Tony coughed and gulped in shuddering breaths as Ezekiel walked over to the table by the wall. It was in Tony's line of sight, and he could see a black riding crop in Ezekiel's hands as he turned back around. Tony swallowed anxiously at the sight of it.

"We'll start off easy," Ezekiel said, presenting the crop to Tony. He walked back around, standing behind Tony. Tony braced himself.

The first strike hurt like the devil; Ezekiel was strong and he took aim well, hitting him right on an existing bruise. The next one was on the other side of his back. The third one over an open wound. By the fourth one, Tony was trying to inch away from the crop.

It was pointless; with his arms above him, chained around the pillar he could hardly move, much less escape from Ezekiel.

Ezekiel delivered twenty or so blows more, until Tony couldn't hold back his cries and he was slumped against the pole, shaking from the pain. Only then he stopped, walking back to the table to return the crop there. He returned empty handed.

"That's better, isn't it," he said, as if making conversation. He reached out and touched Tony's face, ignoring Tony's attempt at pulling away. He held him by his jaw and made Tony meet his gaze. "You're much more bearable like this. When you're quiet, I mean."

He let go of Tony to pace around him. "That was one thing my father lacked — the ability to shut you up." He laughed, but the sound of it was bitter. "He lacked control. And that is exactly what you needed. What you still need, so you won't go destroying innocent people's lives."

"That's not true," Tony disagreed, but his argument was weak, even to his own ears.

"Then why do they call you the Merchant of Death? Why do they hate you? Why were the Sokovia Accords ever proposed?" Ezekiel stepped to stand in front of him again. "I thought you agreed with them. You were one of those who signed, yes?"

Tony eyed him warily. "Yes, I was."

"Why?" Ezekiel asked.

Tony blinked at the question. "Why? Because I—" He cut himself off, not sure what to say without giving Ezekiel more ammo. Because of his guilt? Because he had been tired of fighting? Because he had been scared? Everything he could say, Ezekiel could use and spin against him.

Ezekiel moved closer. "Why?" he pressed.

Tony bit his lip. "For the greater good," he finally replied. Ezekiel looked taken aback by the reply for a second, then laughed in Tony's face.

"You don't even believe that yourself, Stark," he said once his laughter died out. "But don't worry. I know the answer."

Tony huffed, but it was all bravado. "And what would that be?"

"Because you knew it was the right thing to do," Ezekiel replied, like it was as simple as that. "Because you knew that you shouldn't be in control."

"That's not—"

"Because you _knew_ ," Ezekiel spoke over him, "that were you and your other superhero friends allowed to roam freely, it would be the end of us."

"We saved humanity from Thanos," Tony argued.

"No," Ezekiel said. "You handed him an invitation. _You_. First, you stripped our nation of our best weapons, because you decided that manufacturing and designing them was beneath you. Then, you befriended aliens, going as far as welcoming one into your home with open arms."

"Thor is innocent in all of this."

"Maybe he is, maybe he's not. You, for sure, are not." The doubt in Tony's mind that had been niggling at him for years now seemed to be inclined to agree. Tony shut it right up, focusing on Ezekiel shaking his head at him. "Do you seriously expect me to believe all of that was a coincidence? That aliens, that that _man_ , just so happened to stumble upon our planet?"

"What are you implying?" Tony asked with a dangerous tone.

"We were without protection because you, is what I'm saying. After Thor, alien invasions became the new norm. And with the Avengers, so did the destruction of entire cities."

Tony had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep the impact of Ezekiel's words from showing on his face. He couldn't stop thinking about the footage that Ross had shown them a few years ago; of people running in panic, of them crying, huddling together in a hiding spot. Footage of people lying down on stretchers, or in the midst of rubble, unnaturally still. Of children, lying dead on the ground.

_His name was Charlie Spencer. You murdered him._

"That wasn't our intention," Tony said, forcing his voice to stay steady despite the enormous guilt crushing him with its weight. He tried to push the memories down, but they kept on surging right up to the front of his mind.

"It happened nevertheless," Ezekiel said, "Over and over and over again. Until... _Thanos_ arrived."

Tony drew in a shaky breath, swallowing. "We—"

"You," Ezekiel cut him off, once again, "had taken on the mantle of protecting this planet. And you, _personally_ , had guaranteed world peace when you denied your tech from the government. And look were that led us."

He took hold of Tony's jaw again, his grip bruising. "A vulnerable world, an open invitation for anyone with an inclination to violence or a thirst for power. An invitation to just come here and _decimate_ half of the population."

"It didn't happen just on Earth, it happened on every—"

"But you could've stopped it, right? You fought him." He shook Tony by his hold on his jaw. "Yes?"

Tony didn't reply, but he was sure that was answer enough. Instead, he looked into Ezekiel's eyes; they were filled with what Tony could describe only as pure hate.

"You fought him. And you lost. And everyone else paid for it." Ezekiel abruptly let go of Tony's face and grabbed a hold of his arm instead. He pulled on it harshly and Tony feared his shoulder would come out of its socket, but then he was falling down to the floor. He rolled over and glanced at his hands; his wrists were still cuffed, but the chain was now secured to only one of them, hanging freely from the D-ring.

Before he could do anything however, Ezekiel was there. He kicked him twice; first to move him, then to force his breath out of him, his foot coming into contact with Tony's diaphragm. He wheezed and gasped, unable to do much else as he watched Ezekiel march over to the table and return with a cane.

"There were people," Ezekiel begun, pausing to move Tony with his foot again, rolling him onto his stomach. "that died as a result of other people vanishing. Think about it. Bus drivers. Pilots. Doctors. Nurses. Rescue workers. Parents of small children. All those ordinary people."

He struck Tony with the cane and Tony screamed. _"Think about it._ All that collateral damage." He hit him again. "So, you can claim that you saved humanity from Thanos, but that's not what happened, is it. You saved what was _left_ of humanity, after you failed to protect it."

"No, I—" Tony begun, pushing himself off of the floor, but Ezekiel kicked him down again and hit him with the cane.

"My wife," Ezekiel gritted out and struck Tony again, uncaring of the raised welts Tony could feel forming on his back, slowly purpling into bruises or splitting open and weeping blood. Tony cried out, desperately holding back tears of agony. "My _wife_ was in a car when her driver disintegrated." As Ezekiel spoke, he brought the cane down on Tony's back a few times, emphasizing his speech. "She survived the crash. She was brought into a hospital because of some broken bones."

Ezekiel let out a sudden, choked off sound like he was holding back a sob. "Her wounds from the crash were not fatal, but she passed away within the week. You know why?"

He kicked Tony, forcing him on his back so he could lean over him. Tony whimpered as the rough concrete came in contact with his back.

 _"I,"_ Ezekiel said, indicating to himself, "had vanished. Her mother and father had vanished. She had no one. She died of _grief_. She died, because of you."

Tony looked into Ezekiel's eyes and saw the deep sorrow for his wife as well as the burning rage for him. It was overwhelming.

"What do you want?" he asked. His pride had held him back earlier, but now, after the beating Ezekiel had dealt him, and after the harsh words and accusations, he felt raw enough. Raw, like an exposed nerve.

"I want my wife back," Ezekiel replied without hesitation, "But you can't give that to me. No one can."

Tony swallowed. "So why am I here?"

"Why?" Ezekiel repeated. "For you punishment, of course. For your penance. For your confession."

"My confession?" Tony asked. Ezekiel didn't say anything else, just watched Tony as he straightened up into his full height. He stepped over Tony and walked back up to the table.

"Whose fault was it?" he asked, his back turned to Tony. Tony craned his neck and looked up at him, confused.

"What?"

"Whose fault was it that so many people got hurt?" Ezekiel clarified.

Tony felt cold all over. He tried to push himself up, but he was trembling and everything was hurting from the beating. He stared at Ezekiel's back. "It was because of Thanos, Ezekiel."

Ezekiel turned to look at him. His expression was that of cold, sinister fury, and it chilled Tony down to the core. He begun approaching him; in his hands, he held what looked like a baton. "Whose fault was it?" he asked.

"Thano—"

He delivered a sharp blow to Tony's jaw. Tony grunted and spat out a mouthful of blood; he had bitten into his tongue.

"Whose fault was it?" Ezekiel asked again. When Tony didn't reply, he pressed the baton against his sternum. Tony's eyes flew wide open and he convulsed when tiny metal spikes suddenly pierced the fabric of his shirt and the surface of his skin, the baton administering him with a powerful electric shock.

He groaned when Ezekiel withdrew the device, eyes glued to it. Ezekiel held it up for him to see.

"One of your designs, as I'm sure you can tell," he said, and continued to explain, "My father left me with a small quantity of your most controversial weapons. True works of art, I'll admit." He caressed the surface of the baton. "My talents always lay more in biological warfare, although I never managed to quite make a name for myself. Not like you, anyway."

He brought the baton down again, pressing it beneath Tony's chin. "But you do really know your way around this stuff. Even this little thing," he shocked Tony again and Tony ground his teeth together as he convulsed, "it looks so innocent, yet with correct settings it can kill a man with one little push of a button."

He looked down at Tony, looking disgusted by what he saw. "Truly, the Merchant of Death." And just like that, Tony felt equally disgusted by himself, no matter how he tried to tell himself that this was exactly what Ezekiel wanted. Everything was just too...much, at the moment.

Ezekiel seemed to notice his inner conflict, since he asked again, "Whose fault was it?"

Tony's breath left him in a desperate exhale, but still he refused to answer.

Ezekiel shocked him again. "Whose fault was it?"

Tony's lungs were working overtime to draw in an adequate amount of air. His vision swam and he could tell he was nearing a panic attack. Another shock coursed through his body.

"Whose fault was it?!" Ezekiel sounded angry now. He electrocuted Tony right after his question, not giving him time to recover. "Whose fault was it?!"

"Please, I—" Tony let slip, barely able to breathe. He could feel the odd gravity pulling him down and taste the stale air he had breathed in on Titan. He could see Peter turning to ashes before him, clinging onto him and crying, _begging_ , because he didn't want to die.

The sight disappeared when Ezekiel electrocuted him.

 _"Whose fault was it?!"_ he yelled again, and something inside Tony broke.

 _"My fault,"_ he gasped out, tears leaking out from the corners of his eyes at the admission. "My fault," he repeated, breath hitching.

Ezekiel watched him for a moment. "Say it."

Tony forced down a sob. "It was my fault that people got hurt."

Ezekiel nodded, seemingly satisfied. "Yes, it was," he agreed, and Tony couldn't look at him anymore. He couldn't bear facing the guilt that had been suffocating him for all these months. For all these years.

And now it was out there — he had admitted to it.

"Get up," Ezekiel told him. When Tony wasn't able to comply right away, he shocked him with the baton once more. "I said get up."

Slowly, Tony pulled himself into a sitting position, but that was the extent of his capabilities at the moment; his vision was tunneling and he didn't feel like he was in control of his limbs. He was breathing in rough, uneven gulps of air and he could feel the remains of his shirt clinging to his skin, either with blood or sweat.

He heard Ezekiel sighing, and when someone grabbed him, pulling him up, blood rushed away from his head and towards his feet. He passed out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _tw: violence, torture, psychological torture, mentions of blood_
> 
> How did you like the chapter? Please, leave kudos/comment :)
> 
> About Ezekiel:  
> Ezekiel is a real character in the comics (at least in 616, I think), but apart from some vague traits (e.g. name, intelligence, despising Tony, _baldness)_ he's pretty much OC in this fic. 
> 
> Come say hi to me on [Tumblr.](https://cannibalpasta.tumblr.com/)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .....guys i'm so sorry, i know it's been v long since the last update. i'll just tell you that i've been very busy with work and my thesis, and leave it at that.
> 
> so, this story WILL be completed if any of you are still wondering, either with 9 or 10 chapters in total, depending on how long the conclusion or the epilogue end up being. i already have ch 7 ready, just in need of editing, while chapter 8 and 9 are still partially in the making, so let's hope you don't have to wait as long for the next update :D
> 
> thank you so much for reading and understanding! i'm really dissatisfied with ch 6, but i felt like i needed to update, also maybe you guys won't be as critical of it as i am. i hope you enjoy! :)

Steve looked through the one-way mirror as Rhodey interrogated the woman. It was afternoon now, and they had regrouped at the compound after extracting the suspect. They had managed to find a piece of hair from the factory, and matched it to a sample from the DNA database. Steve had been right — the cleanup had been clumsy.

However, a DNA match alone couldn't prove someone's involvement in a crime. False matches happened from time to time, or at least that was what Natasha had told him.

They would need the woman to talk, and they needed her to do it now. Steve was painfully aware that with every passing second the trail that led to Tony was growing colder, their chances of getting him back, in one piece _or at all_ , worsening.

He rubbed at his eyes, scratched his beard — the exhaustion from staying up all night was beginning to take its toll on all of them. Rhodey's movements were even sharper and angrier than they had been at the start of the night and Spider-Man, seated behind Steve's back, kept twitching like he was jerking in and out of sleep.

Nebula seemed to be the only one not affected by the hour, but Steve supposed that had something to do with her being a cyborg. She stood unmovingly by Steve's side, eyes fixed on the woman behind the glass.

"You're a doctor!" Rhodey was saying, his voice coming from the speakers by the wall, when Steve tuned back into the interrogation. "You swore an oath, didn't you. _Do no harm?"_

The woman, Dr. Ann Miller, smiled sweetly — it unnerved Steve, but also made his blood boil. They didn't have time for her mind games.

"Yes, of course. And I have followed it ever since," she replied.

"How could doing what you did to Tony Stark not be in violation of the oath?"

"What I did to Tony Stark?" she repeated, blinking innocently up at Rhodey. She was exaggerating her movements, like all of this was somehow amusing to her. Steve gritted his teeth as he watched her though the glass.

"Your latest patient," Rhodes clarified, his voice tight. He was visibly vibrating with anger, but reigning it in good. Better than Steve would have, in any case. "The one you treated last night."

Dr. Miller smiled again, this time a little condescendingly. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"We know you were there at the time of—"

"I simply do what is required of me," she interrupted, leaning back in her chair like she had no worries in the world. She glanced at the one-way mirror, pushing a stray piece of hair behind her ear. She smiled at her own reflection, and Steve despised her.

"And how's that—"

"Speking of oaths, I have another one," she spoke over Rhodey again. She turned her head back to look at him, the smile still on her face. "Doctor-patient confidentiality."

"He wasn't your patient," Rhodey hissed down at her. "He didn't want you to operate on him."

"How would you know?" Dr. Miller asked.

Rhodey's eyebrows rose. "So you're admitting that you did indeed meet Tony Stark last night?"

Dr. Miller chuckled. "I can't do that, Colonel. My lips are sealed." She mimicked zipping her lips, all the while gazing innocently at Rhodes. Steve's hand curled into a fist — next to him, Nebula was flexing her fingers like she was itching to sink them into something.

 _Someone_ , Steve corrected himself.

The door to the viewing room opened and he turned to watch as Natasha walked in.

"She say anything yet?" she asked, nodding at Nebula in greeting as she walked over, stopping to stand by Steve's other side.

"Nothing useful," Steve muttered darkly, eyes turning back towards the interrogation room. "You guys get matches for the prints yet?"

Spider-Man and Nebula's lead had turned out to be a plastic bag, containing the bloodied implants that had been cut out of Tony. The bag had been thrown into a dumpster near the factory, and the lab had been able to find partial prints on it.

"Not yet," Natasha replied. "FRIDAY is sorting through the databases as we speak. Bruce is trying to find out if there's anything we could learn from the trackers themselves."

Steve nodded, gritting his teeth. He heard a sudden noise, and turned his head to watch as Rhodes stomped out of the interrogation room. A moment later, the door to the viewing room opened.

"She's a nutcase," the man said, indicating with a thumb over his shoulder. He looked angry and tired, and there was a light coating of perspiration on his forehead.

"Can I give it a go?" Natasha asked, and Steve watched Rhodey nod.

"She's all yours," he said, sounding irritated, and made room for Natasha to exit the room. She disappeared swiftly from the viewing room and Rhodey took the place she had vacated by Steve's side.

"I'm sure she did it," he told him, eyes trained on the doctor. The door to the interrogation room opened and closed as Natasha stepped in. Steve nodded at him.

"Yeah," he agreed and was about to continue, but furrowed his brows instead. He watched as Natasha placed a device on the surface of the door; it whirred and contorted, forming a locking mechanism near the handle. "Shit," Steve let slip.

"What is she doing?" Rhodey asked. Even Nebula was leaning forward to watch more attentively.

Steve didn't have time to say anything before Natasha had bashed the doctor's face right into the metal desk in front of her.

"What was that?" Spider-Man asked suddenly, stirring at the loud sound. His voice was groggy.

"That is not good," Steve said with no real concern to his voice. He felt like it was his duty to protest, but he didn't much care what Natasha did to Dr. Miller. Not, if she got a confession out of her, at least. All that mattered right now, was Tony.

"Where is he?" Natasha asked levelly, while Dr. Miller held onto her bleeding nose.

"She's going to screw this up," Rhodey said with an clipped tone, banging his bare fist against the reinforced one-way mirror. Natasha didn't as much as react to the sound. "We won't get her to trial if she can plead coercion." He looked at Steve. He looked torn, just as Steve felt, and the look in his eyes was urgent. But his sense of morale was stronger than Steve's, since he continued, "Tell her to stop."

Steve met Rhodey's gaze, studying him. He swallowed as he dreaded the word he was about to utter.

"No."

Rhodey was silent for a moment, studying him. "Steve," he finally pressed, disbelief in his eyes. Dr. Miller's scream cut through the air, and Rhodey pointed to the interrogation room. "I don't like that bitch anymore than you do, but you need to think. This isn't right." He added more emphasis to his voice as he continued, " _Tony_ wouldn't want this."

It gave Steve a pause, but the reminder of Tony and Dr. Miller's involvement in his kidnapping had the opposite reaction to what Rhodes had aimed for; it hardened his resolve, even whilst the notion made him feel a bit ill.

When Steve still didn't do anything to stop Natasha, Rhodey shook his head and rushed out of the viewing room.

Steve looked back through the window, a blank expression plastered on his face. Natasha was holding onto Dr. Miller's hair now, playing with her knife against her skin.

"What's happening?" Spider-Man asked, standing right behind Steve's shoulder. He had to be watching the interrogation — his voice was unbelieving, somewhat frightened like someone's who wasn't used to watching violence of this kind. Steve thought it fit with the youthful image he had of Spider-Man. He reminded Steve of his own younger self.

Nebula stepped closer to him, breaking his train of thought. "Are you not going to stop her?" she asked levelly. Testing him, Steve realized. He spared her a glance; her eyes were glued to the interrogation room and unlike Spider-Man, she seemed to be reveling in what was happening.

Steve gritted his teeth again, trying to swallow down the ill feeling he felt when Natasha cut Dr. Miller again and she let out a strangled scream. She hit her, and Steve could tell that Spider-Man had just flinched back.

"Time is running out," Steve replied simply. Nebula nodded, as if she approved of Steve's words.

After a few minutes, the War Machine armor kicked down the door to the interrogation room. Natasha let Dr. Miller slump against the table.

Steve watched as Rhodey let the face plate slide up. He breathed for a moment, eyes moving between Natasha and the doctor. "Did you get anything?" he asked in the end. His voice was filled with equal amounts of hope and disapproval. 

Natasha nodded. "A name."

 

* * *

 

_Luis Taylor._

That was the name of the man that had been responsible for the cleanup. The man that had given Dr. Miller the payment for her job. Even the partial prints on the plastic bag matched Taylor's.

When Steve and his team seized him one hour later, he sang like a bird with the faintest threat from Natasha.

He didn't know much, but he gave up all the names he did. His friend Ed Adams, whom he had introduced to the whole criminal business. His boss Bates, to whom he had worked for previously. Two men he had met that night, Marco and Becker, who had been responsible for delivering Tony to wherever he had been wanted. Two drivers, a man and a woman, whose names he didn't know. The doctor, whom he had been tasked with paying.

It was obvious to Steve that the man was a scapegoat; he knew hardly anything of the kidnapping, apart from what had been his job to do, yet he would be the first one fingers would be pointed to. The names he had given, all except for Ed Adams, would most likely lead to nowhere, since they were only halves of names, and Steve supposed some of them could be pseudonyms.

He still tasked Sam and Bucky with going through the criminal databases to find a link between them. Rhodey had taken over interrogating Dr. Miller again, and after Natasha's methods, she seemed much more agreeable to speak with him.

She didn't know other names in addition to Taylor's, but she had spoken to a man that matched Taylor's description of Marco. For a deal with the prosecutor, she was willing to divulge the conversation they had shared.

A couple of hours later, when Steve was ready to go into the room and punch the intel out of her himself, an accord was finally reached. After signing the deal, she revealed what she knew; a motel address.

 

* * *

 

Thinking back on the lightning of the basement, it had probably been some hours after he had passed out when someone came to get him, nudging him to rouse him from his sleep.

He was lying face down on the floor, his arms stretched before him, circling around something. Another nudge caused him to groan irritably. He attempted to move his shoulder away from whoever it was that kept on bugging him.

It was a mistake.

He wasn't able to contain the moan of pain at the movement. A burning sensation had flared up along the muscles of his back, and his entire back felt hot and swollen. Even breathing hurt. He didn't even want to imagine the mess of bruises and torn skin his back was sure to be.

"Stark," someone called, nudging him again. "You gotta get up."

He somehow managed to lift his head just enough to turn and see the man talking to him. It was Bates, crouching next to his prone form.

"What?" he slurred.

"Get up," Bates repeated, reaching over to remove the chain from Tony's leather cuffs. He put it in his pocket and pulled Tony's hands down, closer to the rest of Tony's body from where they had been reaching around the pole.

"Why?" Tony asked, pulling his arms to his sides. He was miserable and in pain, and just wished that Bates would give him a break before Ezekiel's inevitable return.

"Hammer wants you to have dinner with him," Bates replied and Tony wanted to groan. Right. He had completely forgotten about Hammer.

"Well, I don't want to have dinner with Hammer, so," he said indignantly, not very surprised when Bates took a hold of his arms and pulled him up into a sitting position. He groaned and swayed as dizziness took over.

"You need to get cleaned up," Bates said, pulling him up the rest of the way. Tony stumbled along as he walked him to the stairs, hands on his upper arms, and stopped there. "Do you need to be carried?"

His voice was neutral, neither mocking nor concerned, but it made Tony bristle all the same. "No," he bit out against his better judgement, and leaned heavily on the hand railing as he took the first step up the stairs.

After what felt like an eternity, they finally emerged from the staircase. A bathroom was just around the corner and Tony was grateful he didn't need to climb up the second set up to the topmost floor.

Once inside, Bates indicated to a pile of clothes on the counter, as well as a towel and a washcloth right next to it. "Wash up and get changed. Hammer will be expecting you in ten minutes, so be efficient about it."

With that, he closed the door and left Tony alone in the bathroom. Tony almost wished he hadn't, since the moment he did, the crushing reality of what had happened with Ezekiel felt tangible enough to choke him to death. He felt embarrassed for crying in front of him. He felt ashamed for the accusations he had thrown in his face. He felt guilt for all those people that had suffered.

He clapped a hand over his mouth to contain a sudden sob. _God_ , he felt horrible.

He looked at himself in the mirror, bruised and bloodied and pitiful, and tried to reign it all in. Now was not the time for a breakdown. Now was the time to put his best foot forward and act like everything was good and peachy, so Hammer wouldn't get in on Ezekiel's little game, too.

He gingerly shrugged off the remains of his t-shirt, letting it drop to the floor by his feet, and kicked off his sweatpants. He picked up the washcloth and wet it, adding a little soap, and swiped it across his chest.

It wasn't all that bad. Cleaning up made him feel more human. It felt good, wiping away the sweat and grime from his skin. He just wished he could wipe away his injuries along with the dirt.

He watched himself in the mirror as he worked; he saw a multitude of hand-shaped marks on his arms, cuts and bruises on his hands and face and his jaw was swollen on one side. Beneath the leather cuffs that still encased his wrists snugly, he could feel raw skin. Puncture wounds littered his chest, accompanied by the red flush of irritated skin where Ezekiel had electrocuted him.

His back, unsurprisingly, was the worst of it all. It was mottled with black and blue, sticky or caked with blood on places, and there was hardly any of his normal skin color to be seen. His ass had a few welts and his knees were bruised, but fortunately nothing felt broken or infected.

He cleaned his wounds as good as he could, but refrained from otherwise touching them. The dressings that the doctor had wrapped around his arm and leg, over the cuts she had done to remove his implants, were probably supposed to have been removed or changed by now, but Tony wasn't willing to expose the cuts to the damp and dirty basement, so he kept them on.

After cleaning up and getting away the worst of the dirt and blood on his person, he made use of the facilities. As he washed his hands, he eyed the set of new clothes on the counter. It was another t-shirt, folded on top of a pair of soft-looking pants. In between there were a pair of briefs and socks.

Tony tried not to think about wearing underwear supplied by Hammer as he pulled the briefs on. Still, it was better than going commando and anything would help with keeping him warm when he was to return to the chilly basement in the end.

He was struggling with pulling the shirt on when there was a knock at the door and Bates abruptly pushed it open.

"It's been almost fifteen minutes already," he said curtly, eyeing Tony as he finally managed to pull the t-shirt over himself.

"Good thing I'm ready then," Tony said as he straightened up, grabbing the towel from the counter and wrapping it around his shoulders. His hair was still damp from him washing and scrubbing it, and the towel would work nicely to battle against the cold were he allowed to keep it. Bates raised an eyebrow at him, but didn't otherwise comment.

They walked to the door that lead to the dining room, where Bates stopped and gestured at Tony to raise his hands. Reluctantly, he did, only because he saw no way out of it, and Bates clipped the chain back to the D-rings, securing them to each other. Then, he knocked on the door.

"Come in," Hammer replied, and Bates pushed in. Tony stumbled in after him, since the man's hand was curled around the chain of Tony's cuffs, tugging him along.

Tony met Hammer's eyes, and he was taken aback when he saw surprise etched on the man's face. As Tony watched, it was quickly hidden behind a smile. When the two of them approached the table, Hammer gestured with his hands grandly.

"Anthony, good evening," he said. "You look a little worse for wear, hm? Please, have a seat."

Bates walked him over to the same chair he had sat at earlier that day, letting Tony take a seat by himself. He let go of the chain once he had. Hammer sat down opposite to him.

"Bates, do serve Anthony here a good portion of the dinner," he instructed.

"Yes, Sir," Bates replied, stepping close and scooping roasted vegetables, potatoes and beef onto Tony's plate from the containers on the table. After serving Hammer the same meal, he poured red wine into the glasses by their plates.

"Dig in," Hammer said once Bates stepped back, eagerly cutting into his own beef. Tony eyed his plate, letting his gaze travel over to Bates.

"So what is he?" he asked, not moving a muscle to eat, "Your manservant?"

Hammer chuckled while Bates' face remained emotionless. "You could call him that. Let's just say that he owes his life to me and leave it at that. Loyal people are so hard to come by these days."

Tony met Hammer's gaze. "Yes, they are," he agreed, picking up his fork. He wouldn't be able to wield his knife and his fork at the same time with his hands bound so closely together, but he would make do with what was offered. "Company men in particular," he added, a slight grimace working up his face. "It's a tough business."

Hammer raised his eyebrows at him. "You're referring to me getting kicked out of my own company, aren't you?"

Tony chewed on the vegetables in his mouth before answering. His bruised jaw ached at the movement, but he was also famished so it was worth it. "Hey, I'm not judging. I know what it's like to get stabbed in the back by your own board. I'm just stating a fact."

Hammer huffed. "Yes, you would know about that." A brief silence ensued, and Tony could guess which person, and by extension his son, they were both picturing. He held back a shudder at the reminder. "That's why I needed you, actually."

That caught Tony off guard. Tonight he was off his game, still unbalanced and raw from Ezekiel's treatment earlier, and if Hammer was going where Tony thought he was with this...he wasn't sure what he was going to do. Lose it, probably.

He set down his fork and reached for the wine, taking a swig before daring to say anything. "You needed me for what?" he asked finally.

"Well," Hammer began, ominously enough, "Zeke thinks that I'm in it for the same reasons as him; revenge, punishment, biblical justice, whatever it is. And don't misunderstand me, because I do despise you, but that's not all." He sipped his wine, as if he was contemplating his words. "Let's just say that I have a vested interest."

Despite the warm temperature in the dining room, Tony could feel himself going cold again. "You're not suggesting what I think you are. Because it's not gonna happen."

Hammer met his eyes again, looking at him over the rim of his wine glass. "Yes, it is." He set the glass down and grabbed a piece of bread from the basket between them, tearing a piece from it languidly. "I will rebuild my company, and you're going to help me."

Tony clenched his jaw. "No."

"Yes," Hammer countered easily. "We will start working first thing tomorrow."

"In your dreams, Hammer," Tony told him coldly. Bates took a step forward, and Tony noticed that his hand had curled around the handle of his knife. Hammer narrowed his eyes at him.

"It seems that Anthony has had quite enough of supper for this evening," he said, clearly reveling in the power trip it gave him to be able to order Tony around. He drank more wine and flapped his hand at him. "Please, escort him back downstairs, Bates."

"Yes, Sir," Bates replied, walking up to Tony. Tony shrugged off the hand that grabbed his arm, but couldn't evade the one that enclosed around his right hand, the one holding the knife. His knuckles were white from pursing his fist around the handle, and yet it didn't take more than the slightest pressure from Bates to make him release his hold.

Whatever. Tony was trying to pick his battles and he was glad to get away from Hammer anyway, thank you very much. He made sure to send one last frosty glare in the man's way as Bates walked him out of the room.

 

* * *

 

Apart from the small amount of blood smudged on one of the bed legs, Jim couldn't have even told that Tony had been in the motel room. The site was clean and didn't hold any evidence other than the blood. There weren't any witnesses.

They had talked to the people staying in neighboring rooms and learned that there had been some ruckus early in the morning. Someone had heard a man screaming, but that was the extent of it. It didn't seem like anything apart from the norm for that particular motel. Rhodey had suppressed a shudder at that, and Steve had had to walk out of the room.

It was just the two of them now plus Natasha, since Jim had told Peter and Nebula to stay in the Quinjet. It would be best if they could go over this part discreetly.

Natasha had talked to the owners of the motel and found out that the room Tony had stayed in had been booked by a man fitting Marco's description. He had paid with cash and it wasn't the motel's policy to ask for an ID with customers that didn't reserve the room for longer than half a day, so there was no way of identifying him now.

They had come a long way, but Jim was afraid that the trail stopped there.

He watched morosely as Steve pursed his fists, obviously fighting against the urge to punch something. They were now standing in the parking lot, having inspected the motel room and spoken to the owners and the residents. They had done all of that, and still hey were none the wiser.

Jim squeezed his eyes shut and willed himself to calm down. Him getting all worked up wasn't going to help Tony. They already got one super soldier ready to breakdown any minute now and a teenager slowly but steadily sliding towards hysterics. Natasha and Nebula seemed the only ones mostly unaffected by the situation, but Jim knew that wasn't actually the case. But they were somehow keeping it together.

With a sigh, he opened his eyes again, focusing on the street on the other side of the parking lot. His eyes widened as he noticed something.

"Guys," he said, his finger eagerly raising to point upwards. Steve and Natasha crowded near him. His mouth quirked into a crooked smirk. "Smile, you're on camera," he continued, eyes trained hard on the street surveillance camera pointed in their direction.

 

* * *

 

Now that he was up and about once more, Bates had strung him up again, the chain of his cuffs caught in the hook near the top end of the pole. His arms were stretched high above his head and it felt horrible on his back; a couple of the welts had opened up and began weeping blood into his new shirt, and the burn from the stretch on the muscles on his back and shoulders made him gasp for breath.

He had been hung there for at least some hours and his arms had officially switched from numb to leaden at some point. It would be fine with him, since at least now he couldn't feel the throbbing of his abraded wrists, but it was getting tougher to move them around now that he had been there for some time already.

Occasionally, he would doze off from exhaustion, which made it hard to keep track of time. However, it was now very dark outside, and Tony was pretty sure they were over the midnight mark.

 _Fantastic_ , he thought, _I've been officially missing for more than 24 hours now._

Frustration made him struggle harder and he tried to wiggle his way up the pole — if he could just slide the chain off the hook he might have a chance at escaping.

Also, moving around and trying to work out of his restraints kept his mind off of Ezekiel and Hammer. So, he wiggled his fingers and trashed against the chain, pulled to tear the leather cuffs and pushed on his toes to dislodge the chain from the hook. But it seemed that he was stuck firm and good.

He was in the middle of attempting to yank the whole damn hook off of the pole when the door to the basement opened. He twisted around as good as he could — which wasn't that much, to be honest — his heart in his throat as he expected Ezekiel to descend the stairs down. The man was ought to return at one point.

But it wasn't Ezekiel at all that entered the basement; Tony frowned when his eyes landed on Bates instead.

"What do you want?" he asked after a moment, when Bates had yet to say something. Instead of replying, the man walked behind Tony and Tony tried to angle his body in a way that would keep him in his sights. He started when Bates' hands grabbed a hold of his hips and lifted, dislodging the chain from the hook, then depositing him down so quickly that Tony lost his footing.

He sat up on the floor around the pillar, groaning at the excruciating case of pins and needles in his arms as his nerves decompressed, and was distracted long enough for Bates to pull up a chair and sit down on it in front of him.

"You'll need your hands tomorrow," he said simply, watching Tony stiffly rub his arms up and down.

"For what?" Tony asked irritably, "I'm not building him anything. Is there even a workshop in this dump? Because if so, I highly doubt it meets all the safety regulations."

"You won't be building anything, but you'll need to hold a pen. Even Hammer's not moronic enough to let you near tech," Bates said and Tony blinked up at him; had he just insulted his own boss? Bates seemed to catch his train of thought since he continued, "I'm loyal to him, but that doesn't mean I'm blind to his shortcomings."

Tony snorted. "Which there are a lot of," he mumbled under his breath, but sobered when Bates didn't seem particularly receptive towards his jab. "Fair enough," he said in a louder voice, shifting uncomfortably under Bates' intense stare, "So, I suppose Hammer wants my help designing something then, huh?"

Bates raised an eyebrow. "You're the genius here, you tell me."

Tony sighed. "Well, whatever it is, I'm not helping him with it, and that's all I'm gonna say about it."

Bates grabbed a hold of his jaw in a manner that was fast becoming familiar to Tony; it seemed that face grabbing was a favored move among baddies who had it out for him.

"You seem awfully lax in my company, Stark," Bates said, leaning closer so he was looming over Tony. Tony gritted his teeth as Bates' fingers pressed harder into his jaw and brought his hands up to grasp at Bates. The other man easily caught them with his free hand. "I thought I advised you to check your attitude with me. And with Stane working you over...well, I'm impressed."

"Impressed?" Tony let out with a strained voice.

"Impressed at your conviction to behave like a brat." Bates' voice was as indifferent as always, but the iron grip around Tony's chin spoke for itself.

Tony didn't say anything else, and eventually Bates let go of his face.

He stood up and walked over to the table by the wall and Tony was filled with dread as he wondered what Bates might be retrieving from there. Now that they were free to roam, his hands flew to the bit of chain he could reach, fingers straining for the simple swivel clips. He stopped when, after a brief moment, Bates turned back and walked back over to Tony. In his hand he held a bundle of nylon rope.

"Blue's not really my color," Tony quipped, eyeing the rope cautiously.

Bates ignored him. "Believe me or not, but I don't actually want to spend the rest of the night here making sure you won't try to make a run for it," he said, pointedly eyeing Tony's hands as if he had seen him grabbing the chain. Tony supposed he was just predictable in that regard. Bates casually threw the rope down and Tony glared up at him.

The man crouched in front of him and unclipped the chain from one of Tony's cuffs, twisting the other end securely into the palm of his hand and holding onto it.

"Now," he begun, shifting his gaze from the chain to Tony's face. "You do as I say, and I'll let you sit in that chair," he nodded his head towards the chair behind his shoulder, the one he had dragged over to the pole, "If you don't, you spend the night here on the floor. Got it?"

Tony nodded slowly, eyeing the chair. "Got it," he said.

Bates looked at him, then pulled on the chain to get him to move. And Tony was hardly to blame — it was almost instinctual — for using the momentum and striking Bates' hand off the chain with his palm. Bates' other hand was already halfway up by that point, but Tony had been expecting it and deflected it was easy. He managed to dodge one more grab by leaning away, before Bates planted a hand in the middle of his chest and slammed him down to the floor.

He cried out as his abused back hit the cold and hard concrete and reacted slow enough to Bates' follow-up that the larger man managed to pin him down.

"Did you really think that was gonna pan out?" he asked breathily, tone bored but eyes harsh.

"I just couldn't help myself," Tony told him, grunting when Bates pulled him up by his hair.

He threw Tony against the pole and pulled a sturdy carabiner out of his pocket. He grabbed onto the cuff with the chain again, pulling it back so Tony was forced with his back to the pole, and held Tony's arms in position once he had them where he wanted. Tony tried to twist around as the carabiner was attached to the D-rings, binding his hands much closer together than the chain had.

Next, he grabbed the blue rope and unwound it, ignoring Tony pulling on his cuffs and twisting his wrists futilely to reach the carabiner — it was no use, his fingers didn't even brush against it.

"Is that really necessary?" he asked when Bates fastened the rope around his middle three times, then across his upper chest three more times. He was efficient and quick about it, and it clearly wasn't his first rodeo.

The ropes tightened with a sharp tug that forced a faint gasp out of Tony.

"Yes," Bates said, twisting the rope around itself so it was pressed snugly against Tony's chest. Next, Tony felt it wrap around his upper arms. He sighed.

"You're too slippery for your own good," Bates told him, moving in a way that indicated he was tying the rope into a knot. "And your little stunt just now did nothing to discourage me of the fact."

"Yeah, yeah, blame it on me," Tony drawled, tensing as his wounds rubbed uncomfortably against the ropes and the pillar behind his back.

Now finished, Bates stood up and moved so that Tony could see him. "I warned you about my temper, didn't I," he stated flatly. He left the basement, leaving Tony to prepare for an uncomfortable night on the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading :) leave a comment, thank u
> 
> come say hi to me on [tumblr](https://cannibalpasta.tumblr.com/)
> 
> EDIT: i just came back from reading all the comments from the last chapter — thank you so, so much, every single one of them was lovely!!! i'm sorry i haven't gotten around to answering them, however i still wanted to thank you guys. they are a nice motivation booster :) write you soon!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again :)
> 
> So, note that this chapter is pure hurt. It gets pretty bad. This means that you should maybe re-check the tags for this fic. I'll also add some additional ones into the notes below.
> 
> I promise we will be seeing some progress soon. Tony will get out eventually.
> 
> Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Tony's eyes tracked Hammer's hands as he smoothed them over the blueprint. It was spread out on the table in front of him, along with an open notebook and a simple pencil. He was standing on the other side of the table, while Tony was seated by it, glaring up at the other man. Bates was lingering by the wall, as was expected, and the study felt small with all three of them cooped up in there, even if it was of average size, really.

"Well?" Hammer said, crossing his arms over his chest and smiling proudly down at Tony. Tony did his best to let his glare translate exactly what he thought of the man.

"Well what?" he played along.

Hammer nodded toward the blueprint between them, still smiling. "What do you think?"

Tony glanced down at the prints, then shrugged. "Not a fan, to be honest. Major design flaws. But at least that's consistent with the rest of Hammer Industries' products."

Hammer's smile turned quickly into a scowl. "Quit with the act, Tony. I want you to tell me how to boost the efficiency. I want Stark Industries' patents. I want specs." He paced as he rambled, stopping to stand next to Tony on the other side of the table. He put his hand on his shoulder, squeezing like one would a friend's. "Work with me here, hm?"

Tony didn't react to the touch, but he turned his head away from the blueprints, staring at the wallpaper in favor of it. His hands, which were cuffed behind his back, tightened into fists and the chain attached to the cuffs _clink_ ed softly against the back of his chair. "Yeah, not interested."

Hammer tutted at him, letting his hand drop off of his shoulder. "Come on now, Anthony. I know you're tired and hungry. The quicker we're done here, the quicker you'll get your reward."

Tony rolled his eyes. Hammer had promised that in return for his help, he would be provided with food and a comfy bed, as well as a new set of clothes and the opportunity to bathe. He could even tend to his injuries, Hammer had said. He had promised a lot of things, all of which Tony had promptly refused.

And it wasn't like it was a bad reward. Quite the contrary actually. Tony's body was begging for rest and food by now, and a shower and clean clothes would make him feel less like a pathetic wreck and more like a human being again. Some Neosporin and new bandages would go a long way, as well.

But that was Hammer's play, after all. Unlike Ezekiel who would abuse and intimidate him, Hammer would coax and bribe him. Like a twisted good cop, bad cop routine. And Tony refused to give into it.

"Not gonna happen," he croaked around a dry throat, closing his eyes and refusing to look at the blueprint again. It was too easy, and Hammer must have devised it like that. Tony could see the flaws standing out like black ink on a white canvas, and the correct answer was so easy. Too easy.

"You know that Ezekiel will be back again today," Hammer drawled, his hands moving to rub at Tony's sore shoulders. Tony held back a hiss as his fingers moved past bruises and welts. "You'll need your energy if you're going to survive another session with him."

"You're saying you would let him kill me?" Tony shot back, seeing through Hammer's bluff, "You would sacrifice your _golden goose?"_ He shuddered involuntarily as the words left his lips, wanting to take them back. His mind had been on Obie too much lately, and now he was already dropping phrases that the man had used to.

"Oh, you'll get the food and the rest necessary so you won't drop dead, dear Anthony," Hammer said and walked back to the other side of the table. "But wouldn't the encounter be much more bearable were you better... _prepared?"_

And yes, it would be much more bearable, but Tony wouldn't be able to live with himself were he to give Hammer what he wanted. So he said nothing.

Much of the morning progressed like that, with Hammer propositioning to him and Tony refusing him firmly. At twelve o'clock, Hammer had his lunch brought to the table, and he ate it slowly in front of him. Once he was finished, he told Tony to beg for the scraps. When he refused, he dumped them into a trash can by the wall.

At two o'clock, Hammer seemed bored and somewhat frustrated, and Tony was drooping in his bonds with exhaustion. Hammer was speaking again, gesturing for Bates to haul Tony back to the basement, when he suddenly stopped. Tony's focus sharpened at that and he listened; the distant sound of car tires on gravel could be heard through the poorly insulated windows.

Hammer sighed like it was but a bother to him. To Tony, it felt like being dosed with icy water. His mind raced to Ezekiel, and the previous afternoon he had spent with him. To the beating the other man had dealt, as well as to himself, lying pathetically on the floor and crying, of all things. The memory made him go hot with shame, all the while icy dread flooded his veins.

A desperate thought fought itself to the forefront of his mind, _I don't want to go through that again._

He forced his mind back in order, and shot back, _But you're going to go through it, so keep it together, Stark._

He carefully released the tension he had stored in his frame, trying to will his hands to cease their trembling as he did. He inhaled and exhaled in an attempt to calm himself.

"He's early," Hammer was saying when he tuned back into reality. He was eyeing his wristwatch, an annoyed frown etched between his eyebrows. He stood up, meeting Tony's gaze as he straightened out his suit. "He must be eager to see you again, hm?"

Tony really didn't want to think about that, and so he broke the eye contact with Hammer, causing the other man to bark out a laugh.

"Not feeling up to it?" he asked as he walked over, taunting him. "Too bad. You should have thought of that when you turned down my offer. _Multiple_ times." He patted Tony on the shoulder. "Maybe tomorrow you'll make the wiser choice."

 _Maybe tomorrow I'll break your nose,_ Tony thought venomously, but couldn't bring himself to say out loud. His jaw had refused to budge from its clenched position ever since he had heard the car driving into the front yard.

"Bring him downstairs," Hammer instructed Bates as he exited the room. Bates was quick to comply, untangling Tony from the chair and walking him after Hammer with a hold on the back of his t-shirt.

When they began descending the stairs that led down to the lobby, Tony could make out Ezekiel's deep and impassive voice, discussing something with Hammer below them. His feet stopped working and Bates had to push him to get them moving again, but even then he managed only one step down.

"Get a hold of yourself, Stark," Bates told him, his voice low and cold, but Tony clung to the words anyway.

_Get a hold of yourself, Stark._

_You're going to go through it, so keep it together, Stark._

_Tony, it's going to be okay._

_Walk it off._

_Hey. Take it easy. Tony._

_If you need me, I'll be there._

He forced his feet to move again.

By the time they reached the end of the stairs, Ezekiel and Hammer had stopped talking. They stood there, a polite space between them, and turned their heads to look at Tony and Bates as they appeared in their line of sight. Behind Ezekiel stood the same two women that had stood behind him yesterday, and by the front door lingered Marco and Becker. Marco had a backpack slung over one of his shoulders, but Tony couldn't spare more time to study them, since his eyes flew to Ezekiel at the sound of his voice,

"Rest well, Stark?"

Tony's heart was pounding in his chest, but he made himself meet Ezekiel's gaze. _He's just a man, he's nothing compared to the things you've faced before,_ he told himself. _You've faced Thanos, you have faced a Stane before, you can face Ezekiel again._

_If you get hurt, hurt 'em back._

"Slept like a baby."

Ezekiel made a non-committal sound, eyeing Tony's form up and down. Tony knew he must have looked awfully pathetic there where he stood, the bruises and cuts on his arms and face on display, his clothes ill-fitting and dusty from the basement and his skin pale and his eyes dull with exhaustion. He knew all that and felt impossibly conscious of it, but stubbornly refused to give into the temptation to shrink into himself. 

"Bring him downstairs for me," Ezekiel said, eyes still on Tony as he stripped out of his suit jacket, handing it to one of the women trailing after him. "A chair will do this time."

Tony's automatic response was to jerk out of Bates' hold, but it seemed to be expected, since the other man easily maneuvered him towards the stairs anyway. He struggled as Bates walked him down to the basement, but his hands were still cuffed and he was as weak as a kitten, with the pain and hunger and dehydration, so he didn't seem to offer that big of a resistance to the other man.

He was pushed into the chair still pulled up near the pillar and held there by his shoulders.

"No!" was all he managed to gasp desperately, when he heard Ezekiel descending the stairs to the basement as well. By then Bates had managed to twist the chain around a few spindles so that Tony was stuck to the chair.

The hands returned to his shoulders, keeping him still. "Easy," Bates told him, and Tony noticed that his breathing had sped up considerably. He tried to calm himself down again, find that courage from a couple of minutes ago, but it was hard. Impossibly hard.

"Don't touch me!" he spat, wrenching away from under Bates' hands, grasping for some measure of control over the situation. Bates let him, stepping away from the chair altogether.

"Feeling tense, are we, Stark?" Ezekiel asked, and Tony's eyes swiveled toward him. Ezekiel met them briefly, before turning his to Bates. "You can go now. Tell your boss we will be joining him for dinner in an hour or two."

"Yes, Sir," Bates replied and swiftly left the basement. At the top of the stairs, he closed the door with a definitive _click_. Tony's eyes had followed his retreat, but now they focused on Ezekiel.

He had remained in the middle of the room while Bates had left, leisurely fixing his collar and sleeves. Today, in addition to his discarded jacket, he had rolled up his sleeves and removed his tie, when yesterday he had been in a such a hurry to get his hands on Tony it didn't have seemed to matter. Tony hoped it meant that he had gotten the worst of it out of his system.

When Ezekiel finally turned his face back to look at him, however, eyes filled with hate again, Tony doubted that was the case. His hands had begun shaking again and he admonished himself silently for the fact.

As Tony watched, the larger man began pacing, his spine straight and his hands folded neatly behind his back. Tony couldn't help but feel the contrast to his own position, his back slouching from the angle of his arms, his hands bound to the chair uncomfortably.

"I told you about my wife yesterday," Ezekiel finally said, breaking the suffocating silence. He had been circling behind Tony, and he jerked slightly at the sound of Ezekiel's voice.

Weirdly enough, Ezekiel didn't continue. He had also stopped pacing, and the horrible trepidation it caused was what urged Tony to speak, "You did," he agreed, feeling sweat beading near his hairline.

Ezekiel continued walking and Tony held in his stupidly relieved exhale. "I feel as if that conversation was a bit one-sided."

He swallowed. "How so?"

Ezekiel had now rounded back to stand in front of Tony, and so the engineer raised his eyes to look up at him. Ezekiel was watching him as well.

"You had a thing with that secretary of yours, didn't you? Pepper Potts?" he asked, and Tony felt a hot surge of protectiveness.

"Don't you _dare—_ "

"Don't interrupt me," Ezekiel said with a dangerous tone, taking a step closer to Tony. Tony recoiled a little on instinct and hated himself for it. Ezekiel leaned down, looming over him. "Speak out of turn one more time, and you'll learn the consequences."

Perhaps Tony had underestimated Ezekiel's fury, since it seemed that the man was as livid as ever after a few unadvised words from Tony.

He straightened up again, getting right on track with his spiel, "I can't say that I'm surprised it didn't pan out, though. I don't think there's a soul on this planet that could love you."

It stung, but Tony knew it wasn't true. Pepper did love him, despite their break-up. Rhodey had told him he loved him on several occasions. His mother had told him she loved him.

Ezekiel lifted an eyebrow as he studied Tony's face. "You don't seem to believe me. Well, then, humor me," he moved closer again, "tell me who loves you."

Tony blinked up at him. "Wha—"

"Tell me," Ezekiel repeated, voice annoyed now, "who loves you?"

"I'm not—" He was slapped, hard.

"Answer the question," Ezekiel pressed, twisting his fingers painfully into a handful of Tony's hair and pushing his head back.

"Pepper loves me," he let out, sounding defensive in his own ears. He swallowed and reigned in his tone as he continued, "Rhodey loves me. My mom loved me."

Ezekiel chuckled, letting go of Tony's hair and continuing with his pacing. "Is that why she left you? Or, why he spends all his time across the world, away from you, risking his life? Or, why your parents shipped you off to boarding school? Because they _love_ you?"

"That's not—" he was cut off by a hand closing around his windpipe, Ezekiel appearing back in his line of sight.

"Shut the hell up," he growled, keeping steady pressure on Tony's throat. "You know it's true. They can't stand the sight of you. Not your parents, not your friends, not even your beloved Avengers." He released Tony, who erupted into a coughing fit.

"Speaking of which," Ezekiel continued, ignoring Tony's desperate attempts at drawing enough air into his lungs, "How's the good Captain?"

Tony's heart stuttered in his chest and he twisted his head to look up at Ezekiel with wide eyes.

"You forget that I knew you when we were barely teens, Stark," Ezekiel drawled. "Of course I remember your infatuation with Captain America. It was borderline embarrassing."

As he spoke, he walked over to the table by the wall and Tony's body jerked involuntarily against his bonds as he watched Ezekiel pick something up.

"So, how does it feel?" the man asked, turning around. "How does it feel to know you're a disappointment even to your greatest hero, Captain America?"

Tony shook his head desperately, trying in vain to deny the statement, but it was too raw, the wound from his altercation with Steve still festering like an untreated cut. "Steve doesn't—"

A blinding pain burst across his left shoulder where Ezekiel suddenly struck him. He let out a choked-off shout, twisting in his seat as the pain spread. He forced his eyes to open so he could see what he had been hit with; it was an expandable metal baton.

"You really don't listen, do you?" Ezekiel asked. He trailed the tip of the baton across Tony's chest, bringing it up below Tony's chin. He used it to tilt the engineer's head up. Tony reluctantly met his gaze. "How frustrating must that be for Captain Rogers, I can't even begin to imagine. No wonder he hates you so."

 _He doesn't hate me_ , Tony almost protested, but held his tongue — his shoulder was still throbbing something awful. Whatever, it would have sounded weak, even to his own ears. He hardly believed it himself, some days.

Ezekiel waited for a moment, as if expecting Tony to disagree. "Good," he said finally, letting the baton drop from his chin. "See, this is what I've been talking about. Control."

"Fuck off," Tony let slip, and Ezekiel struck his thigh this time. Tony gasped as pain flared across his skin.

"With a mouth like that you'll never get into Rogers' good graces, Stark," Ezekiel said, "Isn't that what you want? His acceptance?"

He hit Tony again, this time on his other thigh. "His friendship?" he asked, taking a hold of Tony's jaw and twisting his face upward. "Or, is it his love?"

Tony's breath stuttered, and he tried to keep his face blank. Ezekiel, however, read his face like an open book, and sneered down at him. "Oh, that's so disgustingly pathetic, even for you, Stark."

Tony tried to hold the shame that flooded his system at bay, because he knew that shaming him was exactly what Ezekiel was aiming for, but he couldn't. He just couldn't, and the age-old burn of embarrassment flared from somewhere deep within his gut, traveling across his body all the way to his extremities. He could hear Howard's voice in his ears, comparing him to Steve, mocking him, and all those others that had come and gone along the years, commenting on his worthiness and lack thereof to stand next to Captain America or on his position against him regarding the Accords. He could hear himself there with all of them, questioning himself and his choices.

"You know you couldn't even hold a candle to him," Ezekiel continued, his voice drowning out the others in Tony's ears. He let go of him as if disgusted and the burn of embarrassment inside Tony intensified. "He hates you, just like the rest of the world."

This time, Tony couldn't hold in the objection, "He doesn't hate me!" he bit out petulantly, hearing the desperation in his tone. Ezekiel struck his ribs with the baton and kicked the chair sideways, causing Tony's right shoulder to impact harshly with the floor.

"You don't even believe that yourself," Ezekiel said cruelly, crouching to loom over Tony. "I know he chose his buddy over you. I know that he left you for dead in Siberia."

He paused and Tony studied him, eyes wide. "How? How would you know about Siberia?" he asked. It was more than worrying, how good an access Ezekiel had managed to get into his life. He had known the whereabouts of Tony's tracker implants, he possessed Tony's old prototype designs, he knew too many details about supposedly disclosed affairs. It scared him shitless, the power he wielded over him with knowledge, more than anything else.

Ezekiel seemed almost bored to be asked, but he obliged Tony nevertheless, "Along with a few of your trinkets, my father also left me with some old files and a backdoor access to your servers. Honestly, when I dug it all up a few months ago when I started formulating all this in my head, I was surprised when the access actually worked. You probably noticed that, right?" Ezekiel huffed, "Your AIs were quick to kick my specialist out of the mainframe, but he was fast enough to gather some intel that would work in my favor."

Tony felt sick. In fact, yes, he had noticed, he had been alerted of a security breach to his servers, but the access had been terminated quickly enough for him to not loose his sleep over it, despite all his paranoia. He had assumed it was a rookie from SHIELD, trying their luck at one of the sturdiest firewalls in the country. FRIDAY had attempted to trace the hacker's IP address, but they had been using a proxy server to hide it.

In the end, Tony had added some security systems to the route that the breach had come through, and called it a day. Apparently, that had been a mistake. A costly one.

"An oversight, on your part," Ezekiel said, rubbing it in, "One that I was relying on, since I knew how cocky you are." He grabbed the chair and righted Tony again. Tony grunted as his bruises were jostled. "However, your cockiness isn't what I meant to discuss with you. Captain America is."

Tony let out an involuntary noise and looked away from the other man. "I think you've made your point already."

"No," Ezekiel said, shaking his head. "I don't think that I have." He leaned over Tony, grabbing him by his hair again. Tony gasped as his head was wrenched back, cursing Ezekiel, the whole situation, Steve and himself in his mind.

"Do you love him?" Ezekiel asked levelly, forcing Tony to focus on him. Tony stared back at him, all words dying on his tongue. Ezekiel shook him with the hand knotted in his hair. "Do you?"

"I don't," Tony denied, gritting his teeth.

Ezekiel struck him on his left shoulder again, keeping his other hand tightly fisted in Tony's hair, so that it was impossible for him to flinch away from the man. Tony squeezed his eyes shut.

"Don't lie to me," Ezekiel growled, "Do you love him?"

Tony didn't say anything, and so Ezekiel hit him with the baton again.

"It is so painfully obvious," he told Tony, pushing the tip of the metal baton into Tony's chest uncomfortably. Accusingly. "Of course you would be selfish enough to love him and to wish him for yourself. And only you would be egoistical enough to delude yourself into thinking that the Captain harbored anything other than disdain for you."

He raised the baton and hit Tony in the ribs with it. "Selfish!" he said as the metal connected with Tony's skin, and Tony cried out at the intensity of the pain.

Ezekiel let go of Tony's hair, holding his head up by his jaw instead. Tony tried to squirm away, but Ezekiel's grip was unyielding. "Haven't you wondered why you are still here?" he asked suddenly, his tone almost gentle. Changing angles, Tony hazily realized.

"Huh?" he managed.

"Why your team hasn't come for you already? Why _he_ hasn't come for you already?"

Tony knew he could rationalize that, knew that he could come up with a dozen of reasons, but he couldn't right now, not now when he was dizzy with pain and embarrassed beyond measure. So, right now he didn't want to think about it. He tried to pull his head back, but Ezekiel's hold was tight and firm. "Stop, I—"

"Don't you think Captain America would have already come and saved your pathetic self, did he care at all about you?" Ezekiel pulled him closer, all the way until Tony's neck was straining. "Would he have left you for dead if he cared about you?"

"That's not what ha—"

"Let me ask you another question, this one not rhetorical," Ezekiel interrupted him. Tony noticed that he had abandoned the baton, letting it fall down to the floor, but at this point it didn't seem to make much of a difference — Tony's body was racked with pain, high-strung with fear and misery. Ezekiel didn't need the baton anymore — he had Tony right where he wanted him.

"Does Steve Rogers love you?"

 _No, he doesn't,_ was Tony's immediate answer. He didn't say it out loud, but he could feel his traitorous eyes filling with tears.

Ezekiel placed his free hand on Tony's left shoulder, over the spot he had struck three times, and squeezed. Tony whimpered, trying to pull away from the hand, and the tears he had been trying to hold back slipped down his cheeks.

"It's an easy question, Stark," Ezekiel said, not letting up the pressure on Tony's shoulder, "Does Steve Rogers love you?"

Tony gasped but refused to reply. Ezekiel twisted his shoulder with an angry sound, and Tony's mouth fell open with the pain.

_"Answer me!"_

His mouth betrayed him before his conviction could, "No!" it burst out with, the short word quickly followed by a half-stifled sob. "No, he doesn't."

"He doesn't what?" Ezekiel continued, squeezing harder for one agonizing moment.

"He doesn't love me," Tony clarified, this time with all of his essence, voice choked and nose clogged as a new set of tears made their way down his face. The pain on his shoulder was horrible, but nothing compared to the anguish he felt inside.

"Why?" Ezekiel still continued, seemingly reveling in Tony's turmoil. His hand had left Tony's shoulder and was now traveling down, coming to rest on his bruised ribs. "Why doesn't he love you?"

"Because I'm not good enough," Tony admitted. It was painful to say, but somehow a relief as well — like he was confessing his sins to a higher authority, and finally being dealt with the consequences of his actions.

"That's right," Ezekiel confirmed, "You're a selfish, narcissistic, conceited excuse of a human. You are a murderer with blood of the innocent on your hands. Not one soul could ever love you."

He leaned in closer as Tony still processed his words, all of his energy spent on that one confession. "You don't deserve love," Ezekiel continued. He pressed his fingers down on Tony's ribs and Tony groaned. "And yet, you so selfishly crave it." He paused, watching Tony. "Tell me now. You love him, don't you?"

Tony closed his eyes, not wanting to see the look on Ezekiel's face as he finally admitted, "I do."  
  
Ezekiel released his hold on him completely, pushing away from him violently. "That's what I thought," he said, voice filled with disgust. Tony drew in a shaky breath, fighting for control over his emotions.

Before he was able attain it, Ezekiel had unclipped the chain from Tony's cuffs and tilted the chair, throwing Tony to the floor. He held onto one of Tony's wrists, twisting it painfully behind his back, until he had attached the chain to both of the cuffs again.

Tony hissed, clenching his jaw to keep his sobs contained, as Ezekiel roughly repositioned him to kneel with his back turned to the other man. "Stay still," Ezekiel instructed, moving away from him. Tony was too exhausted, too distraught to even start thinking about disobeying, so he stayed put and tried to pull himself together.

Ezekiel's footsteps returned and Tony's breath caught in his throat as he felt the crop striking his bruised back again. He gasped and leaned forward, upper body folding over his thighs.

"Still remember this?" Ezekiel asked, tapping Tony's back with the end of the crop. He walked over to crouch in front of Tony, pushing him back up. "Now, do as I say, and I won't be forced to use it on you again."

He stood up, pacing around Tony. "Stand up," he said, suddenly.

Tony blinked down at his knees with blurry eyes, not knowing what was the smart thing to do.

The crop struck him again, this time near his bad shoulder. "Stand up," Ezekiel repeated, voice low and testy, as Tony struggled to concentrate through the haze of pain.

He decided it was wisest to obey, so he slowly rose up to his feet, almost tripping as wooziness swept over him. Ezekiel steadied him with a hand on his arm. When he was standing still, firmly on his two feet, Ezekiel let go of him and took a step farther from him.

"Kneel."

Tony glanced up at him in confusion. Ezekiel raised an eyebrow, the hand holding the crop twitching in warning when Tony didn't comply right away. Involuntarily, his body jerked into movement and he knelt back down. In a way, he was grateful for the position, since standing for even the briefest of moments had made his legs shake like leaves. However, kneeling in front of the other man accentuated the power imbalance, which Tony doubted was unintentional.

Ezekiel peered down at him, head tilted as if in thought. "Good," stated he finally. "Now, stand up."

He made Tony stand and kneel again and again, until his legs refused to move and the tears on his cheeks had dried up, replaced by the sweat of exertion. When he couldn't stand up anymore, Ezekiel struck him twice with the crop. Then he uncuffed his hands.

"When's the last time you had water? When you ate something?" he asked, pacing again.

Tony struggled to remember. The room was swirling, making him nauseous, and he had to close his eyes against it. "L-Last night."

"You must be famished then," Ezekiel stated controversially. He stopped walking, turning to look down at Tony. "I'll tell you what, you follow me upstairs, I'll make sure someone fixes you up with something."

Tony looked up at him in confusion. He couldn't bring himself to stand up, how was he supposed to walk upstairs after Ezekiel? Was Ezekiel mocking him?

However, once Tony saw the look on the taller man's face, embarrassment flooded him again as he understood. Ezekiel had uncuffed his hands — he wanted Tony to _crawl_ upstairs.

"Not a chance," Tony growled automatically, glaring up at Ezekiel. His misery was quickly turning to anger.

Ezekiel just tilted his head at him, studying him with a somewhat smug air to him. And that's when Tony realized that he didn't really have a choice here. If he wanted to survive, that is. He mentally calculated the probability of him making it one mile away from the house without food and water, given that he even managed out the front door. Next, he considered the prolonged beating that would undoubtedly commence did he not comply. Simply put, the odds weren't in his favor.

 _Swallow your pride, Stark,_ he told himself, _You need the water. You need the food._

"Are you sure about that, Stark?" Ezekiel asked, as if sensing his conflicted thoughts. "I'm not sure when Hammer will be amenable to feed and water you otherwise."

Tony bit his lip, glaring at the floor. Stalling.

"Well?" Ezekiel pressed, his tone implying that he was growing tired of waiting for Tony's compliance. "Last chance."

In lieu of answering, Tony squeezed his eyes shut and leaned forward, planting his hands to the floor. He heaved his tired legs up so that he was on all fours, holding back a groan. He felt himself flush furiously.

His embarrassment turned into bitter mortification when Ezekiel let out a chuckle. The crop caressed his back gently. "Good boy," he praised and Tony wanted to vomit. "Get a move on, then."

The concrete was rough and cold under his palms and knees, but he crawled across the floor, up the rickety stairs and across the lobby. Ezekiel walked behind him, not seemingly in any hurry.

By the door to the dining room, Tony hesitated. The thought of Hammer and Bates seeing him beaten up, puffy-eyed from crying and crawling like a dog didn't seem very appealing. He shifted his feet, pushing himself up so he could walk the remaining distance. His legs protested the movement, but he knew he could manage that much.

However, before he could pull himself up to his aching feet, Ezekiel had wrapped his hand around the back of his neck and pushed him back down. He _tsk_ ed at him as Tony froze, staring at the floorboards beneath his hands.

"That's not what we agreed on, Stark," said Ezekiel.

Tony squirmed under the hand on his neck. "We never explicitly agreed on me crawling," he bit out.

"We didn't?" Ezekiel asked mockingly, allowing Tony to tilt his head so he could meet his eyes. Tony bit his lip.

So. It was either crawling in front of Hammer or risking severe dehydration. Great.

He elected to say nothing, turning his eyes back to the floor. It felt like submission, which Tony supposed it kind of was, and it twisted his stomach into knots with how wrong it felt. But he was going to survive. He had to at least try to get out.

Steve might not be coming. Rhodey might not find him. The team operated on too many variables nowadays. Tony had to be prepared to survive by himself.

The thought washed him with an artificial calm of sorts, all the way until Ezekiel opened the door to the dining room. He stepped over the threshold and held the door open for Tony. Tony grit his teeth and crawled after him, flushing and preparing himself for the humiliation.

"Ezekiel, did you bring Tony wi—" Hammer's sentence was cut off when he burst into roaring laughter. Tony felt his flush deepening. "Oh, oh my—"

"Over there," Ezekiel instructed Tony, pointing at a spot on the floor and ignoring Hammer. Tony crawled over, for once grateful to be ordered around since it gave him something to focus on that wasn't Hammer's uncontrollable laughter. "Kneel up."

Tony did, hissing faintly as he rested his weight on his sore thighs, staring at the stretch of floor between himself and the table Hammer was seated at once again. He noticed movement from the corner of his eye and saw Bates leaning up against the wall as usual. Next to him stood Ezekiel's bodyguard and by her side the timid-looking assistant, still clutching Ezekiel's coat.

By the time Tony was finished with his survey of the room, Hammer was finally reigning in the last of his giggles and Ezekiel was pulling out his chair and taking a seat opposite to him.

"Dina," he said and the assistant twitched. "Fetch Stark a glass of water and a plate of something to eat. He has earned it."

"Yes, Sir," replied the woman — Dina. She turned, walking through the door on the other side of the room, presumably leading to the kitchen.

"Has he now?" Hammer asked. He seemed interested rather than amused now, and the overly fake polite smile he had plastered on his face spoke of his resentment. The side-eye he gave Tony told him that it was probably because Ezekiel had managed to make _Tony Stark_ crawl up the stairs and into the dining room, while Hammer hadn't managed to get one corrected blueprint out of him.

 _What a mess_ , Tony thought, _How did I end up in the middle of a one-sided billionaire pissing contest?_

Ezekiel seemed to be ignoring Hammer, which was all good in Tony's book. As Bates served the two of them their food, Dina came back with a glass and a plate in her hands. She crouched delicately, mindful of her pencil skirt, and placed the dishes on the floor in front of Tony. She met Tony's gaze as she did; her eyes were dark and wide, and she seemed nervous about something. Tony raised his eyebrow at her discreetly, but she pursed her lips at him. A clear 'Not now' if Tony had ever seen one.

Briefly, Tony considered the possibility of the food being drugged, but it didn't seem likely. Ezekiel could have just as easily plunged a syringe into his neck downstairs, since it wasn't like he needed to trick Tony to overpower him. The power imbalance was already pretty established by now.

He took the glass and eyed its contents. He glanced at Ezekiel, who seemed to be studying him. Not wanting to seem suspicious, he averted his eyes, then downed the whole glass.

For the remainder of the dinner, he tried to keep from inhaling the plate of food he had been given so he wouldn't make himself sick later. He ate slowly and drank the water when Dina refilled his glass.

Soon after his third refill, Ezekiel motioned for Bates to escort him out. He was allowed to walk, but he had to lean heavily on Bates to stay upright.

Perhaps fifteen minutes after Bates had secured him to the pillar with the nylon ropes again, the door to the basement opened, causing Tony to jerk out of his fitful dozing. He looked in the direction of it, glaring tiredly and hoping against hope that it wasn't Ezekiel — he really couldn't handle any more of the guy, at least for the day.

He blinked when he saw Dina descending the stairs, walking briskly in his direction.

"What do you want?" Tony asked warily. Dina crouched in front of him, facing him.

"You and the Avengers saved us," she stated with a wavering voice. Tony frowned at her in confusion and she swallowed. "I wanted to thank you."

"Thank me by helping me out of these ropes," Tony said, trying to sound encouraging but landing on snappish. Well, he would blame it on his shitty day.

"I can't. I'm sorry," Dina said. She fell quiet, looking away from Tony. He was miserable, and so it irked him.

"So, did you just come here to clear you conscience or—"

"No, I—" She cut herself off to draw in a shaky breath, eyes traveling up to glance at the door. "I can't help you. But I can help _you_ help _yourself."_

Tony blinked, shifting restlessly against the chafing ropes. "What does that mean?"

"Your reactor," she said, tapping her own chest. His eyes widened. "Hammer has it here. Bates' guys brought it over today."

"Why?" Tony managed. His heart was beating wildly in his chest and he was finally alert.

"I don't know," Dina said, "I believe he's going to ask you to explain it to him at some point. That is, if he doesn't manage to reverse engineer it before that."

"Oh, he won't manage," Tony reassured. Still, he didn't like the thought of Hammer's greasy fingers all over the housing unit. "Can you get it to me?"

She shook her head.

"Then can you get a word out for me? A location?"

She shook her head again and Tony sighed, letting the back of his head fall against the pillar.

"I'm sorry," she said. To Tony, she sounded genuine. "I'm privy to all of Mr. Stane's dealings, so my activities are monitored. He would know something is going on and move you to another location before your team could come to you. And then, he would kill me."

She seemed terrified at the notion and Tony wondered how she had come to have a position such as this. Now wasn't the time to unpack all that, however.

"Okay, so that's a no then," Tony agreed. Dina smiled faintly at him. Then she glanced at her wristwatch and stood up.

"I have to go," she said, stepping away from Tony. "I've been gone for too long as it is. I'll try to figure something out, but..." Dina smiled again, but it was more of a miserable grimace than anything, "...you're on your own with this one. Sorry."

She turned to go, but stopped when Tony called after her. She looked over her shoulder at him.

"Thank you," he said. She nodded and left the basement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _tw: violence, torture, psychological torture, humiliation_
> 
> Thanks for reading! Please leave a comment or kudos if you enjoyed! :)
> 
> Come say hi to me on [tumblr.](https://cannibalpasta.tumblr.com/)


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